Each year, medical students across the country count down to annual “Match Day,” which marks one of the most important days in a student's career. On Friday, March 18, the students will come together with their classmates and wait for the envelope that will tell them where they are headed for their residency training. This year for our annual Match Day blog series, Ting Yang, an MD/PhD student, is sharing her thoughts leading up to and after the big day.
Since I've found out on Monday that I've matched into a dermatology residency, my backup plans of starting a dog-walking business in Hawaii, being a park ranger in British Columbia, or being a technician in Brad Johnson’s lab in Penn's department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine will go into a prolonged hibernation. In the past few weeks, people have asked me how I feel about matching into a residency and what's being going through my mind. Aside from brief moments of panic thinking about where I may be or what I may be doing in July, I've also been grappling with the words “deserving” and “grateful.”
Over the years, I've often struggled with whether I was good enough or smart enough or hard-working enough to be here, and it's only recently that I've slowly started to acknowledge that I have earned (and deserve) my PhD. There are many moments of self-doubt, and, interestingly, it is one of the many reasons that drive me. Honestly, though, I never thought I'd make it this far, and even if I didn't match into a residency, I feel like I've accomplished more than I've ever imagined possible for me. I had no idea that a career path such as a scientist (or a physician scientist) was within my reach when I was growing up.
That brings me to the gratefulness part. There are many circumstances I have found myself in by neither choice nor merit, and often these circle back to the reality that my parents worked hard to provide a life for me that removed some of the obstacles they and their parents had to face, and for that I am grateful. I'm grateful for the fact that I wasn't born in the same generation as my maternal grandmother, who had her feet bound in China, who had never learned to read or write and had escaped to Taiwan with whatever she could carry during the communist revolution. In sharp contrast, I was born in the Netherlands in the 1980s, and my parents moved the family to Vancouver in the early 1990s. It was neither choice nor merit to be born in the Netherlands (which, I'm finding out, makes all the difference in a green card application) or to move to Canada, where women are treated equally and higher education is relatively accessible (for instance, my first year of university tuition was $2,500). I'm grateful that my parents' main expectation from me has always been to be happy, even though they've worked so much harder than me at every stage of their lives.
I recognize the sheer luck and random chance that allowed me to live a life of immense privilege and opportunities. But it wouldn't be fair to attribute it all to luck and chance either -- I had struggles to overcome like everyone else, and it also wouldn't do justice to the army of supportive friends, mentors, and family members who have picked me up countless times and encouraged me not to quit (thank you). A lot of progress has been made, but there is still much to learn and to do.
Ultimately, the match result won't define me or deprive me of happiness. I will still be able do what I want, and I will try to continue doing what I love (science) until all avenues are exhausted. When Friday rolls around and when I find out where I'll be starting residency in July, I know that it is just another step forward.