In the real world, when you graduate from school, you have the freedom to go apply and interview for a job in your field. Now you may or may not get that job, but that's ok because you can just apply for another one if you don't. In the med school world this practice is thrown out the window. Most people are under the assumption that once you graduate med school, you simply apply for a job at a hospital or a practice and POOF! You're a doctor! Well, allow me to elaborate on what med students have to really go through.
After four years of undergraduate education and four years of medical school... you then have to go into residency. You'd think that after eight years of torturous biochemistry, pathophysiology, and gross anatomy, along with two years of clinical learning, that you've earned enough street cred to just go practice medicine. Well, technically as a resident you are a doctor, but I liken it to a "doctor with training wheels". And exactly how long you have to wear those training wheels depends on which specialty you go into. I'm going into Family Medicine, which requires a 3 year residency.
Now applying for residency is the tricky part. There's this big online application program called ERAS (electronic residency application service), and you HAVE to apply to residencies through this and only this (which costs $ of course). So you upload your transcripts and your CV and you write a personal statement about how awesome you are. All of this is compiled into your application. You then pick a list of residency programs to apply to. I applied to 12. Then ERAS sends all your info to these programs, at which point they decide whether they like you enough on paper to invite you for an interview. Please refer to my previous post: Hi, My Name is Maria. I want to be a Resident at your Program! on what that's like!

Then comes match day, which this year is March 16th. Some big magical mystical computer system goes through your ROL and the residency programs lists and matches students up based on how each have ranked each other. So if I'm lucky enough that the number one program on my list, ranked me high enough, then I will likely get matched to that program. If not, then it goes to my number two, then number three. So on and so forth. If for some reason, which there are many, that you do not match with a program then you have to "scramble". To scramble means that you have to call programs that may still have an opening and hope that they like your credentials enough to give you a spot. This is every fourth year medical students worst nightmare.
The morning of THE MATCH you will receive an email or a letter from your school, which states where you have matched. Whether you matched at your number one choice or your number 10 choice, you are contractually obligated to fulfill your residency at that program. So it's really important to only rank programs you know you will be happy at. The residency director usually calls you and congratulates you, and then you can breath a giant sigh of relief knowing that you will have a job after almost a decade of schooling. Most coincidentally, THE MATCH falls right before St. Patty's day this year, which means that my celebration will continue throughout the weekend (or I'll be drowning my sorrows in pints of green beer if the unthinkable happened and I did not match).
