I woke up to the sound of a faint “ding” from my bedside table. It was 5:24 a.m. Shaking off my lethargy, I scrambled over to my phone because the ding meant one thing: my first residency interview invitation.
Looking back on that moment, as I responded in the dim light of the morning, I realize that I knew very little about what was to come over the next few months. I understood that the residency application process would include scheduling interviews, attending them, making a rank list, and then matching. But I had no idea what a whirlwind process it would be.
First came scheduling interviews. Like many fourth-year medical students, I set up my phone so that the only alerts I would receive were about residency applications. Most ophthalmology programs offered just two or three interview dates that filled on a first-come, first-served basis. This meant that as an applicant, I had to respond quickly in order to schedule them.
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