October 6, 2012

Residency- the next year of our lives

I need to preface this post by acknowledging and apologizing for my absence. We are moved and settled back in in California. Post should be resuming on a regular schedule now :)

We have some exciting news regarding our optometry future!

Jared has been pretty certain since 2nd year of school that he wanted to do a residency program. Well, he has stuck to it and now it is actually happening! A residency is an additional year of training that focuses on a specialty/specific area of optometry. Jared really wants to learn more about and become proficient in specialty/medical contact lenses. This past year Jared has done research on the different Cornea and Contact Lenses residencies that are offered throughout the US.

The system is complicated, but this should give you an idea on how things work: Research interested programs: He narrowed his search down to 3 programs from the 17 total available for what he wants to do. Apply to & interview at those programs: Jared decided to focus all his efforts on 3 programs total. The cost of attending interviews is the sole responsibility of the student. It is recommended to apply to at least five, so this move was a little risky. After the interviews…DECIDE! Jared and I discussed where we wanted to live, where he felt he would learn the most, and all the major factors you consider when deciding a major change. The student completes their rankings: From there, residency picking becomes complicated. Once we made our pick, Jared went online to a matching database and entered his rankings for the 3 residency programs….then we waited. The programs complete their rankings: The schools go into the same database and enter their first, second, third, and so on, choices of candidates. The “match” occurs: At 2pm on a Friday the matching window closes. The computer uses an algorithm to match the candidates. Jared had to rank a program the same as they ranked him. An ideal situation would be Jared ranks a program as #1 and vice versa. Then we wait…..The email: after 2 days of being on the edge of our seats (there are situations where candidates don’t match at all and are without a program), we got our matching email. Jared matched with his number 1 pick!! We will be in SoCal for at least one more year.

What does this mean? Jared will graduate in May, get his license, have the month of June off, and then at the beginning of July start a year long residency program. He will be working under his own license as Dr. J. We will also no longer be paying the school, but will be receiving a very modest income (if that’s what you would call what they are giving us :))! We are very excited. This residency program is one of the most competitive with a high number of applications. We feel very fortunate that it was Jared who got it!

This quarter has been especially nice because of the amount of time we have Jared home. Elliot sure loves him some daddy :)