How did you feel as you opened that red envelope? Opening the red envelope, I initially felt super nervous. I actually took a second to watch my peers open theirs first and then I got around to opening mine about 30 seconds later. It was so surreal to know what I’d been waiting to find out was written on a piece of paper in an envelope! When I finally read it, I was immediately relieved and so excited! It felt like the culmination of so many hours of classes, so many clinical patients, so many tears, laughs, ups, and downs. At this point, I already knew I had matched, so I was mostly relieved even before coming in, but to find out I had matched to my number one program was surreal! And then of course once I’d found out about Baystate, I wanted to know where everyone else was going. I think I was mostly in a happy state of shock about my placement that I felt more excitement about finding out where my friends and girlfriend had gotten residency.
What excites you about your residency program? I’m really excited about the family. The afternoon of Match Day I received a phone call from Baystate welcoming me- it was reaffirming to the family vibe I felt when I went to visit. I’m also really excited about the potential to learn. Finally knowing where I am going to residency made everything seem real, and now I am just excited to go and learn a lot and be the best EM physician I can be. I am also really looking forward to intern orientation to meet everyone and go on retreats!
To top it off- my partner also matched to Baystate so we are looking to buy a house in Northampton, our ideal location for outside of residency activities!
Adrianne Wurzl, DO ‘19
Where are you going for residency? I am going to Baystate Medical Center for Emergency Medicine
What factors went into selecting your Match choices? When I initially began selecting programs for potential interviews, I focused on reputation of the program, variety of pathology, location, number of residents, average board scores, and trauma center status. Going into emergency medicine, I wanted a program that had a strong reputation in New England, a wide variety of pathologies so that I could see as much as possible in 3 years, a larger program so that the workload could be more spread out and I would never feel like I could not pause and just learn, a program with board scores that more or less matched mine, and a Level 1 Trauma center so that I could learn
from and with the sickest of trauma. Throughout the interview season, my focus shifted to focus on the feel of community in my programs, opportunity for fellowship, and the desire of the attendings to teach. I wanted to be somewhere that felt like home, where I would be comfortable learning and where I would have opportunities to learn a lot. I also wanted to be at a program with people I could have fun working with and people I would want to go hang out with outside of work.
What factors led you to your current specialty? Prior to medical school, I was an EMT and worked for an ambulance service as well as in an emergency room in Boston. I actually walked into medical school slightly burnt out and was not sure that I would want to go into Emergency Medicine. Keeping an open mind was also really important for me…who knows what you’ll fall in love with in medical school! Upon starting my third year rotations, I discovered that every aspect of rotations I loved were things I found in Emergency Medicine. I loved the wide variety of pathologies in Internal Medicine, the acuity of the consult service in psych, working with the kids in pediatrics, counseling patients on long term care in family medicine, and juggling multiple patients of higher acuity in the ICU. When I finally got around to doing an EM rotation at the end of my fourth year, it just felt right. I noticed that it was the first time I really looked forward to going home and reading more about the specialty. I also fit right into the team that exists in the ER, and felt as though I’d found a family. Plus, it was fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed practicing in that department. Finally a work/life balance is key to me- shift work in the Emergency Department meant I’d work really hard while on shift, but once I was home, I could put work away.
What were your favorite aspects/memories of the event? Match day was such a mixed bag of emotions for me, though overwhelmingly positive. I remember driving up with my girlfriend, also about to find out her fate for four years, not entirely sure how I would be feeling. I was really excited to see my friends and classmates I had not seen in 2 years and I think I was trying to focus more on that than the red envelope I’d open in an hour. Seeing my friends was an absolute blast. We were all really nervous but it was so good to share that feeling of nervousness/excitement with everyone and also to do a little bit of catching up to distract ourselves from the countdown to envelope time. Of course, once we’d all opened our envelopes, it was inexplicably amazing to be able to celebrate, happy cry, and toast with everyone. It was a good reminder that we’d all worked together and been through all of this together to get to this point, no matter where third and fourth year had taken each of us. Plus, the free raw oysters were an absolute highlight.