I am pretty much obsessed with fellowship thoughts. I remember getting this way at the end of medical school as we were getting ready for the Match for residency. It pretty much consumes every thought.
Quick facts:
Fellowship: Pediatric Neurosurgery (PGY-8) Post graduate year 8 after med school
Match for Fellowship is Dec 10th, 2013. (why do we have to match? I am too old for this!)
Rank list due: Dec 3, 2013
Children's Hospitals/Cities (in no particular order): LA, Houston, Boston, Toronto, Philly, Baltimore, Memphis and of course San Diego + maybe Phoenix, Seattle, Miami
Interviews will be Sept/Oct
$: It won't be as bad as residency applications but I think we will end up forking over a lot of $ for the airplane tickets. Some of the nights in the hotels will be picked up by the programs.
Why am I dying? Here's the thing. I think of myself very flexible and adventurous, but I see that it is not the case as I consider a move across the country with my family. I look around my house and wonder how it is even possible. Then I sometimes kick myself and think, it will be our last adventure before job starts so I should look forward to living in a new place for a year! :) All that aside the real reason I am filled with absolute dread and horror at the thought of moving is Calvin. We have FINALLY after 2-3 years of suffering found a great place for him school wise. And, the state pays for it and will continue to pay for it as long as we are in our school district. It is valued at $50K/year money wise but sanity wise it is PRICELESS. There are some serious concerns about moving to a new city. #1 will there be a program for Calvin where he would be successful? Serious concerns arise about the southern cities where there is less available. I called every special education school in Houston. There is 1 that Calvin could maybe go to. And we would need to live close to it so I could drive him there. They don't have special busses there. Do you have special busses in your towns? My brothers/Dave call them "the short bus" and probably used to make fun of the kids who rode them! Bad, bad. Anyway, Memphis will be similar. Then there's other cities such as Boston where we will most likely be able to find a program for him but then how do we pay for it? Do we take out a HUGE loan? Do we pay an attorney $5-10K to try and get a district to pay for his schooling? Do we put him in a district special ed classroom and just hope he doesn't fail? There are so many questions. I am not sure that it is possible for us to make a good decision and manage a rank list with the match.
I realize that I might sound ridiculous with all this rambling and I am sure things will all work out but for journaling sake I thought I'd document what it was like before we knew what would happen to our life!!! In 20 weeks we'll know!
Today the new Ensign came and there was an Q&A article about how do you make decisions after you have prayed and pondered and still don't know what to do. There was a great quote from Pres. Packer that really hit me:
"Shortly after I was called as a General Authority, I went to Elder Harold B. Lee for counsel. He listened very carefully to my problem and suggested that I see President David O. McKay. President McKay counseled me as to the direction I should go. I was very willing to be obedient but saw no way possible for me to do as he counseled me to do.
"I returned to Elder Lee and told him that I saw no way to move in the direction I was counseled to go. He said, 'The trouble with you is you want to see the end from the beginning.' I replied that I would like to see at least a step or two ahead. Then came the lesson of a lifetime: 'You must learn to walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness; then the light will appear and show the way before you'" ("The Edge of the Light," BYU Today, Mar. 1991, 22-23).
We have been very well taken care of and watched over. We have been so blessed to be in San Diego and we have had prayers answered before we've even said them in some circumstances. I am sure that things will work out. I pray every day for Dave to have the wisdom to figure out what place will be the best balance of career building and family happiness. A lot of the decision making will fall on him since he is the one going out to interview and has to weigh the options.
I'm not gonna lie, my hope is that Dave gets a job offer here that is enticing enough to convince him to stay for fellowship as well and then we'll be here in SD for the foreseeable future!
One of the most delightful parts of the fellowship application process has been seeing his attending physicans support him as he applies. They have written letters for him and will soon start making phone calls. Pediatric neurosurgery is a very small field and the phone calls make a big difference.
For the LOR's (letters of rec), two of his dr's told Dave to "write a draft" and then they'd put something together based on what he sent them. I worked on those two letters for about a week and then passed them to Dave. Dave edited them and then passed them to his dr's. The Dr's edited them and then returned them to Dave for him to look over. It was SO FUN reading those letters! They were so complimentary and generous in their praise.
Dr. Levy - head of pediatric neurosurgery at UCSD/Rady Children's and
Dr. Carter - chairman of neurosurgery at UCSD wrote great letters. They used a lot of what we sent to them and if anything improved upon it to be more complimentary and personal. I have a special place in my heart for both of these great men. They have been great mentors to Dave over the years. Dr. Carter is LDS so he has taken a special interest in Dave making sure he is clean shaven and sharp! Dr. Levy loves being a mentor. He has a heart of gold. A few years ago he invited us over to his house to help "clean out the garage" and sent us home with buckets of legos, light sabers and other toys for the kids.
The third letter is from
Dr. Marshall (you've gotta see his picture). He is a hoot. He wrote the a draft of the letter on the airplane and then sent it to Dave to edit. Dave made no changes except to fix a few grammatical errors since he wrote in a hurry. The letter is awesome. It is very short and to the point and uses what Dr. Marshall calls "the code words to indicated you are the best". Hopefully other people know these code words! Here is the final few lines from the letter:
In summary David Gonda has all that it takes to be a real star in pediatric neurosurgery . Having completed a fellowship in this subspecialty I have strongly encouraged our best residents to pursue such a career. As a Michigan man this letter was a bit hard to write for a Buckeye. However, he is such a wonderful guy with myriad talents that taking him for fellowship training is a sure bet. With all good wishes. LFM
PS If this isn't good enough to make you a Mormon Bishop you need a new agent.
I seriously laughed out loud all afternoon after reading this! He is a hoot.
Dr. Marshall was the chairman when Dave started and then retired 3 years ago when Dr. Carter was hired. He is the one who picked Dave and ranked him high enough for him to match here. He is a quite a character - very talkative, opinionated and possibly lacking some of the filters most people use in regular conversation which makes him extremely entertaining. He is also a genius. He remembers EVERYTHING he has ever read. He can site any paper with dates, authors dating back to the 60's. He knows EVERYBODY in neurosurgery. He is a good guy to have in your court. And speaking of this, on a personal note, we have a hearing in a few weeks to appeal a decision that the San Diego Regional Center made in not accepting Calvin ( more on this later). Dave asked Dr. Marshall to come and be an expert witness about epilepsy and brain damage. He enthusiastically agreed to come. He is already getting ready by reviewing medical records and the laws governing the regional center. He wants to spend a day meeting Calvin (so that his testimony is solid and he is not disregarded as someone who doesn't even know the client in question). Anyway, it is very kind of him. I will write more on that topic another day.
Here's Dave's headshot for applications. (He spent an hour photoediting so it is perfect. funny guy). However I do have to say he is so good looking who would not want to hire him?
One other quick note: Jessica*, Scott and Abbey took him shopping for some decent clothes (we haven't got much of anything since med school interviews 11 years ago) and he got a new suit, some slacks and a shirt. Dave likes to be very comfortable in his clothes so he had been wearing stuff that is a size or two too big. Once we had the right size and saw how awesome he looks dressed nice I picked up another pair of slacks and a shirt plus a few ties that don't have kids boogers or greasy hand prints on them. He is all set for interviews. I had gotten him two new pairs of ECCO's in the last few years at Nordstrom anniversary sales but he never wore them so consequently he has two pairs of gorgeous shoes as well. He will look great for interviews this year and for his duties as chief resident presenting and attending grand rounds and other meetings.
*Jessica found him the deal of the century at Nord Rack on his suit. $89 for a suit perfect for him size and style wise on clearance from $600. Plus, she let us put it on her Nord credit card so the alterations were free. I was worried we'd have to spend a ton of $ to get him looking decent but really it was about $400 and he is good to go. Luckily for both of us he wears scrubs 27 days out of 30 so he really doesn't need more than about 3 decent outfits for both work in general and interviews.
