Residency!

I may have put this blogpost off until, oh, 11:15, because I was scrambling for a topic that wouldn't totally embarrass me. So I won't be detailing here exactly what happened when I played Fatal Frame alone in the dark a few nights ago.

Instead, I'm going to give you guys the rundown on applying for residencies! Or, what I'm planning on doing for the next two years in attempt to get a better background for the time when I'm solely responsible for people's lives.

I want to be an infectious disease pharmacist. To do this, I have to do two additional years of training after I graduate. One year of an intensive pharmacy practice residency - basically a more advanced version of this last year of rotations; one year of intensive infectious disease work.

I'm working on applying to a bunch of places across the country right now, and it's been simultaneously the most demoralizing and exciting experience I've yet had. You see, when applying to pharmacy school, I had one option (due to an ill-fated run in with a poisoned chicken salad sandwich the night before I took the PCATS). I didn't have the anxiety of having to choose between programs, or the fear of not getting in. Or the soul-crushing experience of rejection letters.

Now, I've applied to nine places. One of my top choices turned me down before I even got to interview. Another one did the same (in a hilarious two-sentence form e-mail that didn't even include my name). Four places have given me interviews so far, and I'm waiting to hear back from three more. The fact that there's no way I'll be living in Seattle next year is pretty well countered by the awesome point that the first interview I scheduled was my top choice. I may have spent an hour running around the apartment yelling when I got the e-mail, before calling everybody I know and generally freaking out.

These interviews typically take hours. I'll have to impress the current residents, the residency director, a host of pharmacists and preceptors with my ability to answer questions and whatever clinical stuff they want to throw at me. I'll have to give presentations, analyze journal articles, and solve case reports.

I go on my first interview in less than a week. It's in Ohio. Weather permitting, I'll get there on time (at this point my biggest concern) and then I'll proceed to destroy all of my jitters by blowing the interview out of the water.

Remember Jaws? It'll be like that.

Except maybe with less raining of sharky bits.