When march approached I start to build an undesirable and familiar feeling deep in my chest. The closer it gets to mid-March,  known as Match day,  it grows in me like a tumor. This year, I thought I would escape that feeling by not applying to the match. Yet, the felling crept up like an unwanted weed and grew. I saw others who were unmatched last year celebrating their success of getting into residency programs across the United States. As I read about my colleagues matching , I had to hold back the tears so as not to dampen their joy. I hoped that I could overcome it but I all my tears flow from the same source. 

 I received one interview last year after I had written every Family Medicine, Psychiatry, and Internal Medicine program director in the nation. I finally found a program director that had an open heart and was willing to take a chance. This was a high-stakes interview and I prepared for it every day. The day of the interview, my disabling test anxiety and exacerbated ADHD took hold of me and I was not selected. This year I did not even try to get into a residency. Sometimes I get an occasional email or message telling me about an open internship. I quickly get all my information in an email to the program, then never hear anything back. I didn't apply to the match this year. There was no point.

I want to be inspirational. I want to be positive. I have always tried so hard, yet the accumulation of a persistent rejection and the mantra of: "you don't deserve to practice medicine" or "you didn't earn the right to be called doctor" echoes in my ears and paralyzes me. 

Another colleague that I work with has created a ritualistic way of dealing with his match day rejection. He video tapes himself talking about his hopes and fears, his sadness. Others get angry and bitter. We are all cycling through the stages of grief, and it is a long road to acceptance. 

I am still hearing the myth that unmatched graduates can do research or work in Information Services (IS) as a "back-up". Most people in the medical profession want to believe that a graduate physician has a chance out there in the world. There are a small percentage of people who do go into research. I have found the IS consultant job to be something. Consultancy positions are filled with unmatched graduates (mainly IMGs) who never went to residency or residents that never completed their program. Some colleagues have coined our group "The Undesirables".  We train practicing physicians on Electronic Health Record (EHR) programs such as Cadence or EPIC. They often look at us curiously and wonder why we would be doing this job instead of practicing medicine. All the Is consultants have a "story" to tell. Nobody confesses the truth of being unmatched. We don't disclose that we never actually went into residency because it is taboo in this unique world of EHR "Go-Lives". Honestly, most of us are shamed by our failures. 

So, what is my call to action? I implore you to write your senators, write your legislators, wrote everyone who you think can make a change and let them know that there are thousands of unemployed doctors who would love to practice medicine. We just need more residencies.