Finding My Match

The last year of medical school is typically comprised of a relatively “lighter” schedule, allowing for time to take board exams, rotate at external hospitals, interview at dozens of residency programs, and craft a rank list. In emergency medicine, the beginning of fourth year requires cramming the essentials of the specialty and arriving at each audition shift with a go-getter attitude and steady hand as you take a stab at your first procedures. And for those of us who managed to maintain a long-term romantic relationship amidst the hurricane of stress that is medical school, the beginning of fourth year is also a time to reflect on your relationship and whether you see it going further.

So, you’re telling me that in addition to making sure I chose the right specialty, clinically excelling, and studying for boards, that I also have to decide whether I want to be with my partner for the rest of my life? As I write this, I am looking back and realizing how ridiculous the expectation was, and am shocked that I made the right decision.

By my fourth year of medical school, I was surrounded by couples who were getting engaged, couples who moved in together, couples who seemed perfect, and for whom it seemed like a no-brainer to compose that list of 300+ combinations of programs in the hopes of matching to residency with their soulmate.

That was not me.

As the woman in a heterosexual relationship, I couldn’t help but feel that I had an additional weight on my shoulders throughout the couples-match process. Instead of imagining my wedding, I was thinking back to the years of hard work and fighting against doubts that got me to where I was. Often, I felt that sacrificing anything for my partner, also a graduating medical student, would be a disservice to all of those years. I had interviews across the country, and could have conceivably trained at a number of amazing programs in the specialty that I loved. In voicing my concerns to others, I risked being thought of as selfish, or not desiring my partner enough.

Research has shown that when making decisions, women attend more to relationships and balancing the interests of others. Ultimately, these considerations are used to form decisions that benefit all parties. While this approach has proven to be effective when dealing with multifaceted issues, it is the same one that I had reservations about in fear of being perceived as the submissive woman basing her decisions on furthering the career of her male partner.

Ultimately, I fell in love with a program that was a great fit for me and my partner. While we are now engaged, we always say that the decision to couples-match was even more of a commitment than a proposal. The past few years of residency was as trying, if not more so, for our relationship as we navigated opposite intern schedules, faced the daily frustrations of the job (let’s just say any complaints about admissions from my internal medicine partner never went over well…), and balanced spending time together outside of work. It begged the question, would our relationship have survived if I had sacrificed where I wanted to be?

Even after going through it, I cannot pretend to have an algorithm, or even best practices for this calculated but intuition-requiring process that is the couples match. Being honest with myself and communicating with my partner helped to maintain transparency and realistic expectations throughout the process. Avoiding comparing my situation to others was one of the most difficult but critical things I had to do in assessing my feelings on our relationship. Almost three years since our Match Day, as we wedding plan, there continue to be stressors, but after what my partner and I have been through, the doubts have quiesced. Thankfully, research also shows that women are better at making advantageous decisions in stressful situations.

Jessica Faiz, MD