Celeste Bouchard, DO ‘20
Where did you match?
I matched to Mayo Clinic Family Medicine!
What factors went into selecting your residency choices?
A lot of factors went into selecting my residency choices, and each of those factors had different weights to me. Identifying the factors that are important to you in a residency and future practice really forces you to consider what is truly important to you in life, which I found to be a helpful but challenging exercise. Would you compromise being close to family for a more prestigious program for the duration of your residency? What kind of patient population do you want to serve in your future practice, and why? What kind of work-life balance do you want to have?
Do you want to live in a city or a rural area? These are tough questions to ask yourself, and you really have to answer them honestly to be truly happy in residency. For me, the factors I weighted the most were program reputation, the patient population I’d be treating, flexibility to follow my own interests within Family Medicine, personality compatibility with the current residents, work hours, an emphasis on resident wellness, and proximity to home. I also considered the facility quality, realizing that I was going to be spending most of my waking hours there.
What drew you towards your particular specialty?
I have wanted to go into Family Medicine for as long as I can remember. My dad is a rural family doctor and my mom is a nurse at his practice, so conversations about life in Family Medicine were pretty common around our house. I loved the idea of being there for patients as a constant, familiar support and treating a wide variety of patients and pathologies. As I went through medical school, I became fascinated by how chronic disease is so heavily influenced by lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, stress, sleep and even relationships. I realized that I could become board certified in Lifestyle Medicine to more effectively help patients with chronic disease improve on these critical, lifestyle factors. I believed that Family Medicine would be the best way to reach a population with chronic disease. Internal Medicine would have been a great path as well, but I realized that I loved working with kids which is what led me to Family Medicine.
Where did you set-up to learn your Match Day results? Were you able to be with any friends or family?
My Match Day was not at all what I envisioned, but I am so grateful for the experience I ended up having. I was doing the rotation of my dreams in DC when I learned that the US/Canada border was closing to non-essential travel within 48 hours in the wake of COVID. I had to immediately move back to my parents’ house in Canada because my remaining rotations in the US were cancelled. My parents insisted we were still going to have a Match Day party of our own! On Match Day, both of my parents were with me and I had video called my two sisters and a great friend I met in DC, so I was surrounded by love and support. We baked a cake and made some mimosas. After I had my initial reactions with my family, I spent the rest of the day on FaceTime with my classmates to hear all about their experiences. It was an amazing day!