The Military Match by Sally Richardson
We went through the military match, and my husband had to call a certain number on December 18th and find out if he had gotten a deferral (which he had ranked first) or had been chosen for a military residency. From statistics we had seen, we thought that since so many more people wanted a military residency than there were military spots available, we would for sure get the deferral, since we didn’t even want a military spot.
My husband was all psyched to go on interviews at civilian programs during the month of January and had even gotten a new suit. At the time, he was doing an OB/GYN rotation at his top choice, a private hospital in Indianapolis. The first day of the rotation, the program director recognized him from the picture in his file, walked up to him, and said “Nice to meet you, Travis. You have excellent board scores.” So we thought that is where we would end up. However, the night before, as we were driving home from eating dinner with some friends, I said “so do you really think you’ll get the deferral?” (thinking he would say yes) and he said “Well, at officer training (which he did before he started med school) they did tell us that they weren’t stupid and would pick the best people.” Right then, I just knew we would be going to Wilford Hall in San Antonio, which he had ranked second. He only did an OB rotation there because he thought it would be a nice place for us to have a little vacation. All of the residents there told him not to come there (it was and is a very malignant program) and he spent a month there without once interacting with the program director or any staff any more than he had to because he didn’t want them to have much of an impression of him.
And yet, when he made the fateful call on that morning in December, a female voice told him that he would be spending the next four years in San Antonio, Texas. He was silent for so long that the lady actually said “Are you all right, hon?” to him on the phone. He called me right after and I spent the next week (leading up to Christmas) in a daze and crying without warning. Instead of interviewing in January, we went to San Antonio and looked at houses. He has worn his new suit maybe twice, since he has been in uniform for the past six years. He still feels kind of sad that he didn’t get a chance to go through the interview process — he didn’t interview for his residency position, and he certainly didn’t interview for his current position. Even for med school, he applied early decision, so he only did one interview.
Actually getting a job on his merits and getting to express what he thinks those are, will be a new experience when he gets out of the Air Force!
Both of us would say, after the fact, that we wouldn’t trade our time in San Antonio for anything — although there are certain moments in his residency that we could have lived without. It was good for us to move away from our families and be “on our own”, so to speak. It really strengthened us as a couple. And I suppose if we hang on to that suit long enough, it will eventually come back into style.
