The Hour of the Match Approaches: One Very Different Day

In the latest installment of our Match Day chronicle, Katie Baratz Dalke shares her thoughts on the morning of Match Day itself.

We encourage all the Penn Med Match Day students to share their thoughts throughout the day by using the #PennMatch hashtag and by following @PennMedicine on Twitter.

In many ways, today feels just like any other day.  I woke up in the same bed, am eating the same breakfast of coffee and cereal (but maybe I’ll also have a Pop Tart if I feel a little wild!), will walk the same route over to the med school, and will take a seat among my friends in the same auditorium where I’ve sat for exams and rehearsed for Spoof over the last four years.

All those other days of same, however, have to led me to this one very different day: the day that I’ll learn where I’ll be doing my residency in Psychiatry.  The words in the envelope that I’ll open surrounded by the people I love will determine who my coworkers, friends, teachers, and students will be for the next four years.  They will dictate the impact the population of patients that I see and the varieties of mental illness with which I become most comfortable.  And seeing as I decided to apply in Psychiatry because of the amazing attending physician I worked with on my introductory rotation, I’m sure that the people I meet will introduce me to new passions and career paths.

I am nervous and excited to find out where I’ll be (kind of like how an 8 year-old would feel on Christmas morning... if she also had to perform an oboe concerto in front of a packed house at the Kimmel Center that day.. and Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, and President Obama were all in the audience), but I also feel a sense of calm, knowing that at the end of the day I will be one step closer to becoming the physician I have worked so long to become. 

And I have the post-Match celebratory champagne with my classmates to look forward to!

See the full suite of Penn Medicine Match Day news, as well as last year's Match Day student blogs, at the Penn Medicine Match Day feature site.