Finally finished with interviews!!

I am happy to report that I have finished my residency interview trail! Luckily, Mother Nature was on my side throughout, and I never had any planes cancelled or delayed. However, I did unfortunately get an AWFUL stomach bug during the last week of my interviews which forced me to miss my flight and subsequent interview for preliminary year in Houston. Luckily, I was able to reschedule the interview, and my tickets were on Southwest, so I rescheduled for free. I love love LOVE Southwest! Another tool I have learned to love is Priceline. Amazing! I wish I had started using it earlier. I saved sooo much money using it, and now I'm slightly addicted . Since I know many of you are curious as to where exactly I interviewed, I have made a comprehensive list of all the dermatology programs in alphabetical order below:

Alabama (Birmingham) - UAB

Florida (Tampa) - University of South Florida

Illinois (Chicago) - University of Illinois in Chicago

Iowa (Iowa City) - University of Iowa

Louisiana (New Orleans) - LSU

Michigan (Ann Arbor) - University of Michigan

North Carolina (Durham) - Duke

Ohio (Cleveland) - Cleveland Clinic

Texas (Houston) - University of Texas in Houston

Texas (San Antonio) - University of Texas Health and Science Center

Virginia (Charlottesville) - UVA

adapted from http://mapoftheunitedstates.wordpress.com

Between these derm interviews and interviews for my intern year, I did a total of 24 interviews!! Wow, good thing I didn't add it up until now. I honestly liked every one of the programs and will be happy wherever we end up. George and I will be finalizing our rank list this month. We submit our final list on February 23rd. We find out where we will be for the next 4 years on March 17, which is less than 2 months away, so exciting!

Now that I have my interviews behind me, I can focus on other important things in my life like my wedding. Whoop whoop. Yesterday, I sent emails to pretty much everyone - preacher, florist, cake lady, organist, wedding coordinator, etc - to touch base about what we need to be doing to get everything ready. Also, I submitted our official list to the calligapher yesterday. The list was the biggest pain thus far. Getting everyones names exactly right in a word file was super tedious. Speaking of, I never heard back from the calligraphers, so I'll have to check on that one. Last weekend, we went to the Pointe Ball in support of the Alabama Ballet with some great friends, and none other than the Malemen Band was playing that night. That's our band for the wedding! We had never heard them in person and were excited to get the chance. I think they will be tons of fun!

Next week, I take my Step II Clinical Skills exam in Atlanta. This test is ridiculous. My understanding is that it was originally intended to ensure that you spoke English well enough to see patients. Its a 8 hour test where you see 12 standardized (fake) patients who act out there sickness. I'll be required to interview and exam them and then come up with a treatment plan. I am not looking forward to it. However, I am looking forward to spending 3 nights with my good friend Steph and catching up with Little Sarah along the way!

Happy early birthday to Kori and Kat!
After my quarter life crisis, 26 isn't as scary as I had imagined.