Ep #378: When Match Day Doesn’t Go Your Way

Welcome to the Weight Loss for Busy Physicians podcast. I'm your host, master certified life and weight loss coach, Katrina Ubell, M.D. This is the podcast where busy doctors like you come to learn how to lose weight for the last time by harnessing the power of your mind. If you're looking to overcome your stress, eating and exhaustion and move into freedom around food, you're in the right place. Well. Hello there, my friend. Welcome to today's episode. I'm really glad that you're here with me today. 

Today's episode is one that I kind of am actually surprised I never have talked about on here before, but as I'm recording this, it was just recently match day and my team, we are all aware of what's happening with the doctors, and everyone was talking about how joyful it is and how on social media you see all these super joyful shares of people opening their envelope and just being delighted with where they matched. And it immediately brought to mind that, yes, for a lot of people, that is their experience of match day. But what people typically are not seeing is the reactions of those were match day did not go their way. And what I mean by that is either they didn't match or they may be matched to a place that was way lower down on their list than they thought they would need to go to. Now, since this podcast is for doctors, I'm not going to take any time to explain what the match is or how it works. 

[00:01:47] If you're not a doctor and you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe skip this one. But anybody who is listening to this who's a doctor is going to know exactly what I'm talking about. So I wanted to do an episode for the people who didn't have Match Day go exactly their way. And I have a personal experience that kind of fuels this even more. I mean, I think it's a good thing to talk about anyway, because people really don't talk about it very much. But regardless, that'll come here in just amoment. I'll tell you a little bit more about why it is so personal to me, but I really wanted this episode to be something that could be used for someone who just went through the match, and maybe it didn't go their way. 

And so when this airs, it'll be a few weeks out and maybe the dust will have settled. Maybe it'll have scrambled into something. Maybe it'll figure out what your plans are for next year. But the emotions can still remain. And that's what I really want to talk about today. Like how you actually get through the pain of it, the hurt of it. But I also wanted this episode to be something that my longer term listeners or people who are maybe much further away from the match in their careers to be able to recommend this episode to anybody that they work with, any learners that they work with who might find themselves in this position, it could be that they've mentored you and recommended that you listen to this episode. 

[00:03:11] If you're having this experience, maybe sometime in the future. I wanted it to be a reference episode that can be shared, because this is one of those things where it can feel extremely isolating and extremely lonely when you're going through it. And then finally, I wanted to record this episode because I think there are probably more people than we realize who didn't have a great match experience back in the day and maybe haven't fully processed it. It is an experience that can either ignite some imposter syndrome or some lack of confidence, or it might fuel any imposter syndrome or lack of self-confidence that already exists. 

And I know because I have been coaching women physicians for many years, that those are issues that persist and they kind of smolder, you know, they really just can continue on years and years and years later, even when we're well past that, it really can be something that's still actually an active issue going on for us in our minds. So for all of those reasons, I decided, okay, yep, it's time to do match day episode. Let's do this because this is a thing that people go through, and it's important that we talk about it. Similarly to the episode I just did last week, which was about litigation. 

[00:04:31] And when doctors are sued, it's a similar thing. We don't talk about it. It's a very, very hush hush. You know, it's like, oh my gosh, if this happens to you suddenly, it's like you're a leper. Everybody wants to get away from you, or they don't want to bereminded that this is a thing that could happen. Like I said, it can be a very, very difficult, challenging, painful experience to go through. So let me tell you why this is a personal experience. Not because I didn't match, I did actually match, and I did match to my top choice. 

The reason for that was because I only put one choice. It's a bit of a dive bomb situation when I matched, but the story, it really starts with my husband, because he did not match the very first time that he applied. And this is something that I got his permission of course, to talk about. It was actually interesting with us talking about it. I said to him, you know, I totally understand if you don't want me to talk about this and share our story, his story, our story. But I will say that if I can share it, I think anybody who listens will be able to recognize that. It's not that I'm just teaching what I know. It's that I really, really, deeply know this on a personal level, and I think it'll be more impactful. And he agreed. And so he was like, yep, absolutely. 

[00:05:47] You know, you can talk about it. And then it also gave us the opportunity to go back in time because this was many years ago now to kind of hash that out again, so to speak, kind of a trip down memory lane. Like, what was that like and how did that all go? And, you know, asking him how he felt and things like that. So I will try to keep this story as concise as I can. So my husband was a year ahead of me in medical school when we met. I was a second year med student. He was third year and because of the timeline of everything, we had to decide like really relatively quickly, whether we were going to factor each other into our ongoing plans. 

Like, was this serious enough that we were going to try to work it out so we could be together in residency or not? And so we came to the conclusion that, yes, we did think we wanted to do that. And so it would make sense that he would match somewhere. And then I would do my very best to try to match their the next year. That was basically the plan. And back in those days, ear, nose and throat, which is kind of doctor he is was part of the early match that has since changed. I know there are some fields that still some specialties that still are in the early match, but just kind of follow me on this, because back in those days, it was probably the early match. 

[00:07:02] I was doing pediatrics, you know, which is regular match, but we weren'teven in the same year. And really, he had been an excellent student all the way through. He I don't even want to really say like coasted through his schooling, but it wasn't like particularly taxing. Let's just say I mean, I worked a lot harder than him. Let's just say that and know him in college. But I know what I did and it was it was much more challenging. So not that because he took the easy way out by any stretch. It's just that school was something that came relatively easily to him. 

He had gotten great, like full ride merit scholarship to college, special scholarship. He got like, you know, it was like really amazing full ride scholarship that he got. He got into a great med school, had multiple options there, never had any concerns about not getting into med school, had really been one of the top students in his class. And things had been going really, really well for him. As you may know, you don't stand in front of your peers with an envelope that's empty or an envelope that says you didn't match. You find out a little bit in advance, I think, like the day or two before that you didn't match. And I cannot even begin to express to you how much of a shock it was to him, to me, to all of us who knew him. 

[00:08:26] I mean, it was just so out of left field. You know, it's one thing if you're like, you know what? This is a really competitive, you know, field and specialty. And I'm a decent student, but, you know, definitely not a shoo in like. Let me just try and see and then like, here's my backup plan. If it doesn't work, I'll go into the regular match in this other thing. That is one thing, right? When you're kind of like, you know what I mean? It's a reach, but why not try? This was not that at all with his advisors and everything, like nobody had ever had any concerns. 

I mean, he knew that it was more competitive, but this was just not a thing that had ever been considered. So I cannot, you know, probably overemphasize how shocking it was that he didn't match. So I actually asked him what his feelings were, you know, like, let's just really dig in because, you know, this is feelings. What's all about. And back in those days, I wasn't connected to my feelings. We certainly didn't talk about it so much. So I made a list as we were talking. So this is what we came up with. He felt sad. He felt really shocked. The word he said really described. It was gutted, you know, just feeling like just completely dug out inside, just completely gutted.

[00:09:39] He felt like a disappointment to himself. He felt like a disappointment to his family. And that was really hard. You know, that was very emotional to feel like he'd let people down, let himself down, let his family down. He felt like his self-confidence, which previously had been pretty strong, was very much shaken, he said. It was kind of like it felt like, you know, what you thought was solid isn't solid. Like finding out this thing that you thought was a sure thing? Absolutely. Isn't that level of uncertainty. 

You know, I think that that is something that we all got a taste of during the pandemic, right? We thought life was a certain way and suddenly life was very, very different. He felt angry, you know, kind of like, why didn't I get better advice? Like, how could this happen? Fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of it never working out. And he said he was fearful of what it meant for us, him and me and our relationship. Our kind of budding relationship. Said he really felt embarrassed, and I think that's something that a lot of people don't talk about. He really felt embarrassed. I mean, obviously people knew and he felt grief stricken because there really was a death, a death of the vision that he had had for what his life was going to look like, a death of what his plan was to get to where he wanted to be in his career. 

[00:10:55] And it was just super, super, super tough time. I'll lightly mention and touch on the fact that it was hard for me too. I mean, I had a lot of the similar emotions, to be honest. And I remember I actually, a couple days later had to go see my own doctor for something. I don't even remember what it was, and she, I don't remember, but she somehow said like, you know, are you doing okay? I don't know, I must have I must have been exuding some sort of energy or something. And I was like, no. And I just started bawling. I was like, my first time I'd actually had any kind of emotional release. 

I'd just been holding it together and oh my gosh, it was a really, really, really tough time. So what ended up happening was we got different advice and stuff and people said, well, why don't you just go into the regular match in general surgery? And like, he didn't really want to be a general surgeon. Like, no offense to any of the general surgeons great practice area. It's just not what he wanted to do. There were four positions left unfilled after this match that he could scramble for. He applied to all four of them. We know for sure he interviewed at one of them because I went with him. He thought that maybe he had gone to another one. I honestly, I don't really remember. I didn't go if he did, we couldn't really remember. 

[00:12:15] It was a long time ago. The one place where we did go to together, we were kind of like, oh, even if you get it, like, I don't know that this is it, you know? And so but they didn't they didn't offer it to him. And so he really had to figure out what is he going to do. And I think, you know, the options besides scrambling are, you know, there's different things you can do. You can try to, you know, go get a master's degree. You can do research. You can maybe, you know, go travel and do some volunteer work or things like that. 

So he decided to do a year of research, which kind of worked out perfectly for us because then we could be together. We actually got married the beginning of that year of research, and while I was finishing my fourth year, and then we could work on figuring out how we were going to try to do a couples match together. So he decided to do that to bolster his application with a year of research. It was a lab that was really highly regarded in ear, nose and throat and gave them an opportunity to work with some great people. So that's what he decided to do, how it all ended up working out. Just in case you're wondering, I mean, that next match was an extremely stressful period of time for us, as you might imagine. 

[00:13:19] The reason why I did sort of that dive bomb is what we decided was that we would both apply, like as early as we could, and that even though I was regular match and he was early, I would interview early, like as early as I possibly could. And so we had a month where we were like, you know, never barely seeing each other. I think we had like we met at one time in Alabama. I think we both had an interview in Alabama on the same day, but otherwise we were jet setting all around the country, just blanketing it with applications, trying to go to as many places as we could. 

And then what we did was we jointly decided on his rank list, because you could actually do the couples match with an early match and a regular match, but there had been a couple the year before him, I believe, like where he didn't match, where both of them had been really, really, really excellent students and one was early match, one was regular and going into, you know, pretty competitive fields and they did match. But it was like way lower than they had anticipated or anyone expected. So the advice we got was not to do it that way. So we created our joint rank list. Then he matched and then I only ranked that place. And you know, we told his chair, you know, hey, could you let them know, you know. 

[00:14:39] And I was open when I was interviewing like, hey, we're a joint deal. So I'll let you know after he matches what's going on. So of course I immediately like expressed my interest and honestly it worked out great. It was our third choice. So that's not bad at all. That's in fact really, really awesome. So then he did his residency and he got to do exactly what he had wanted to do. He always wanted to work in private practice as a general ENT, and he's been doing that now for a lot of years, and he's been able to do exactly what he wanted to do, even though there was, I mean, calling it a, you know, an obstacle sometimes feels like it's like. Under emphasizing it. 

I mean, it felt like running your car at 90 miles an hour into a brick wall. That level of obstacle. I mean, not to be dramatic, but seriously, it really felt so bad. So luckily for him, he came with already a pretty decent level of self-esteem and self-confidence and thoughts about himself, and that really buoyed him. We talked some more about different thoughts about himself and, you know, did he make this mean negative things about himself? And he said, it really didn't. But I know that there are so many people out there who already have a little bit more of that shaky self-confidence. And it's easy to make not matching or matching much lower on the list than you would hope for to make that mean that this is, you know, proof that you really aren't very good, that you really do suck, that you're wrong about yourself like you thought you were good, but you're not. 

[00:16:13] And everyone else knows and you're just finding out or, you know, really some very, very painful thoughts that we can have about it. And I want to emphasize that these are actually their thoughts. They're not the truth. They are not facts. They are one way of thinking about it. It's important that we understand that, because the way that we think creates how we feel. And when we wonder, like, why do we feel so bad? It's because of how we think. Now, I'm definitely not suggesting that you just be like, okay, well then I just have to think that it's no big deal that I didn't match and then I won't feel so bad about it.

That's not how that works. That's not what I'm saying at all. But there's the pain of the facts that you didn't match, right? There's the feelings that you have, all the emotions that come with that. We don't need to add on to it by deciding to think certain ways about it that create more pain. Right? It's like if you're already injured, you don't need to think in ways that creates, you know, feelings that are like daggers. You know, you don't have to add insult to injury, basically. 

[00:17:19] And so I have three don'ts and three do's for how to approach this kind of a situation. So you haven't matched or the match did not go the way that you had hoped. What to do. And I will say that, you know, even if it was five years ago, ten years ago, maybe longer than that for you, these still might be very, very useful things to address. Because like I said, I think there's a lot of people who've shoved this down and wanted to pretend like it never happened. Right? Don't want anyone to know. So don't make this mean something that it doesn't mean right. Don't start telling yourself stories. It's really, really easy to decide to think about something right? 

Like they didn't accept me. And that means this either about them or about me. And before we know it, we believe it like it's the truth. When all along it was a story that we just made up. This is how human brains work. There's nothing wrong with you if you're doing this. This is normal. But since we know it happens and we know it's normal, we can become more aware of the fact that it could happen. We have to be really very careful to not tell ourselves that we know why we weren't accepted, unless they have specifically told us why, which they probably did not like. Well, it's because this person didn't like me and this one interview went badly. Well, I mean, it could be that you could have done a better job interviewing, you know, like, that definitely could be the case. 

[00:18:53] But, you know, you don't know. You really just don't know. And it's actually less uncomfortable to sit with the uncertainty than to tell yourself, like, to spin tales, like very scary fairy tales like mean, you know, the evil characters, like the, you know, conjuring up these villains, whether you're the villain or they're the villain, and then believing that that's true and that's how it happened. It's really something we want to be careful of. And, you know, speaking on my husband's case, like he had the grades, he had the test scores, like everything was great. And so it was kind of like, well, maybe he could do better with his interviews. 

Like some thoughts that he settled on were, you know, I just didn't show them how good I am. I just didn't convince them. And I need to do a better job of doing that rather than like, I'm not good or, you know, no one's going to accept me. Or they saw the truth of who I am. Who was I kidding that I could, like, dilute them into thinking that I can actually do this? None of that kind of stuff just going like, oh, you know what? I didn't communicate well enough to them. What I'm capable of, what I can do, why they should take me. And so that allowed him to have the energy and the fortitude and just the patience with himself to practice interviewing. 

[00:20:05] He did go and then do several practice interviews with many of the ENT attendings where we were in school, where he was doing research to really practice and to make it smoother and make it better. And I think that really did a lot in helping him to match the second time. Okay. So the first don't is don't make this mean something. It doesn't mean the second don't is don't avoid talking about it. Don't bottle this all up. Don't kind of be like, okay, this is the thing that will never be spoken of again. I don't want anyone to ever know. 

Not saying that you need to be like leading with this and telling, you know, shouting it from the rooftops necessarily. But, you know, when we really stuff it down and we don't want anyone to know, all that does is it fuels shame. Shame comes from thinking that something is wrong with us, right? Something's wrong with me because I didn't match. And when we don't talk about it, when we don't share it and only fuels that and you might think like, oh, well, you know, what's the big deal? I deserve to feel ashamed for it. Or, I don't know, something that I don't agree with, some sort of, you know, thought like that. But the problem is, is that shame starts putting its fingers in other areas of your life. 

[00:21:17] Like, you start feeling ashamed about other things, and soon you're feeling shame in a lot of areas of your life. And what shame likes to do is hide. And it likes to stay in the dark. So the more that you can share about it, the more you can talk about it. That alone starts to help to relieve the shame. I mean, even just recognizing, like you're

not the only one that this has happened to like it doesn't mean something's wrong with you. It's just an obstacle, you know, like, if you really just look at the facts of it, it's like people made some choices of, you know, who they wanted to work with, and your name was not high enough on that list. 

It doesn't mean anything negative about you, right? Remember, you just didn't show them. You just didn't convince them. You didn't convey that well enough. That's all that happened. It doesn't mean something is wrong with you. So we're not going to make it mean something doesn't mean. And we're not going to avoid talking about it. We're not going to bottle it all up, shove it down, and, you know, act like it doesn't affect us or it never happened. And then the third don't is a bit of a cautionary tale. This is not the time to start relying on eating, on food, on alcohol, on social media, on basically anything to numb you out, to help you get through this time. 

[00:22:32] You know, I think that there are some people that it could be that emotional eating actually starts happening, like they start actually developing emotional eating patterns because of something like this happening and not knowing how else to support themselves and not having anybody to talk to about it, not having any other outlet to deal with this. So how about I just try to make myself feel better and not myself out with food or with alcohol with, you know, other substances? It could be any number of things, right? That's what we want to be really careful of. 

Now, I'm not saying that a distraction or a break from what you're feeling isn't warranted. You don't have to be feeling horrible all of the time. In fact, I think it's actually really nice if you can, you know, get lost in a novel or, you know, you just start watching a movie and you, you know, just don't think about it for a little while. Like, I think that's amazing. There's very little or minimal long term negative consequences of doing those things. Whereas overeating over drinking and getting sucked into looking on social media at everybody else's, you know, their highlight reel, like if you're feeling awful inside and then you're watching all these people and their amazing posts about like, how happy they are that they match to this place, in that place. I mean, that's no, that's not going to be useful or helpful to you at all.

[00:23:47] Right, okay. So that's we're not going to do. And what do we do then? Here's what I want to encourage you to do. This is a great opportunity for you to feel your feelings and to learn how to do that. If you don't know how, if you're kind of like, I don't even know, like I might be over run with them, I want to let you know that that's really typically not how that works for something like this. Although if you are concerned about that, there are support people in the world who can help, who can be there with you, people like a therapist, you know, coaches things like that. It's a really important that you let these feelings out. Again. 

You don't want to bottle them up. You don't want to stuff them down. You don't want to try to pretend that they don't exist, you know, by eating or things like that. So here are some examples of ways that you can process your emotions. And this is by no means comprehensive or covering every single way, but these are easily accessible to most people, and they can be really effective. And you might want to try all of them. So the first one is writing often just writing and writing. 

What is the truth like not trying to like, sugarcoat it and telling everybody that you're fine when you know inside you're not even sure you will be fine. But like lying about it, you know, essentially, and saying that like, whatever is true, putting it down on paper, not because you necessarily want to go back and, you know, review it and, you know, spend a lot of time with it, but more just as an outpouring, just a catharsis, just an emptying of what's inside your mind. 

[00:25:13] Okay. Another one is talking. Like finding that person you can talk to is really, really important. I will say that one thing my husband said is like, he still went to the match day ceremony to support his friends and stuff, and I said, how did you feel doing that? And he's like, awful. It was horrible, you know? So it's like everyone knew that he didn't get up there and open the letter, you know which guess what that means. You didn't match. Like everybody knows, you're seeing all your friends being so excited and not an accusation or nothing against them. 

But like, they didn't know what to say, so they didn't say anything. You know, he was feeling super horrible and alone, you know, but still like, carrying on and being there for his friends. And like doing all that stuff, right? Having someone that you can actually talk to about, all of that is so important. And this could be a good friend. This could be a family member. This could be like a set, a coach or a therapist. This could be a trusted advisor or a mentor, but somebody that you can just be honest about what's going on with you with. 

[00:26:20] One thing that can be difficult is when you have people who really, really love you and want what's best for you, and then something like this happens. They're in pain too, you know? So, for instance, say like your parents are a sibling, you know, they're hurting too, and they want you to feel better. And so sometimes it can be hard for them to support you because they're dealing with their own stuff, even though it's your thing and it feels worse, arguably for you, they're still going through it too, and it can make it hard for them to be the kind of listener or support system that you're really needing or wanting. 

Also, maybe not, but I just want to put that out there. That is what can be so great about a coach or a therapist is they're neutral. You know, they're totally on your side. They're there to listen, and then you're not going to have to be like taking care of them because they're getting so upset knowing that you're having a hard time or feeling bad. You know, they're not saying they're like trying to cheer you up. Instead, they're trying to help you to process what's happening. Okay, so writing, talking, screaming, I mean it in the car, in a pillow, in the forest. By yourself like that can be very helpful. Just getting that emotion, that energy out of you using your voice can be very helpful. 

[00:27:32] Similarly, using your eyeballs crying. If it can come, let it out. Like just let yourself cry. Let yourself sob. Don't tell yourself it's silly. Don't tell yourself it makes no difference. Why am I crying? That is just energy coming out of your eyeballs. Let it come. Let the waves come and don't fight it. Don't resist it. Don't try to stop. Just go to a private place where you can be by yourself and just let the waves come. Just know you are letting all those emotions out of you by allowing that. If you have a hard time crying, sometimes it can be helpful to listen to like some sad songs. Or if there are certain parts of movies that you know are very emotional and kind of really trigger you to be able to cry, you can watch that sometimes that can help kind of

get it flowing. And then exercise is another one too. You know, some people really find that feelings like anger and fear and things like that, that exercise can really help to move some of that out as well. So just knowing that moving your body can really help. I mean, that can be a great thing to do. You know, getting out in nature, getting out in fresh air can be really, really good. Okay. So do feel your feelings. Let them out. Don't be afraid of them. They are natural and normal. And the path to really incorporating this into your life so it doesn't feel so sensitive and tender and difficult, is to move those emotions through. 

[00:28:57] Okay. The second do I actually kind of talked about but a little bit different. So find supportive people that you can talk to and that you can get advice from. And so what I mean by that is obviously the people I just talked about earlier, but also, you know, just in terms of advice, like my husband realized, you know what, hey, I'm gonna talk to, you know, the guy who was advising me before, but I'm also going to maybe spread out the net, cast the net a little wider, talk to maybe some other people, get some advice from them, talk things out with them. 

You know, just recognizing there are people who want to help you and taking advantage of them, like finding out what those opportunities are to get some support. You know, some people who are going to genuinely try to help you to figure out what the next best steps are for you, what you should try to do. And then finally do practice believing in yourself. The thing about this is that this issue may come up from time to time, like it still may resurface. You may think, well, I just need to move past it and just move on and it'll go away. I mean, maybe it might and it also might come up again and again. And so this is such a great opportunity for you to really boil it down to what do you believe is true about you, whether you succeed or whether you fail? What is true about you recognizing if you know that you bring value, and that you would be great in this field, and you have the passion for it and the desire to be there. 

[00:30:27] You know, like you have to believe in you. You have to know, like, I can do this. I am competent and it's really just my job to show them that. But if you come in going, I don't know if I am. It's a lot harder to convince other people next time, right? We really don't want this to just completely destroy your identity of yourself, your self-confidence, never to rebound. Of course it takes a hit.

Of course you know you're feeling bad for a while, but what do you know is true? Like, one thing that I always can come back to is like, I know I'm a hard worker. I know I'm a smart person and I can learn things. You know? I know that I can persevere, like there are things like that right? Where we just can know, like, no, I know this about myself. I know that I will keep going until I figure out what the the right thing is. You know, for me, like, those are important things to recognize and then to remind yourself of. Here's another little coaching tool that I think can be very, very helpful when a situation like this happens. 

[00:31:28] So what I want you to think about is 20 years from now. So say you're listening to this and you have just recently not matched. But even if it's been a while, you know, previously, so 20 years in the future and you are working as a kind of doctor, you want to work as in the ways that you want to be working, and you're feeling really fulfilled in doing that. And you have other things in your life, relationships that you want, like just thinking 20 years ahead. Like, what does that life look like? Like, what is it that you want? Now imagine that you have all that. 

Okay, so that has all happened. That is all happened 20 years from now. If that is the case, then how do you look at what has just happened to you? Is it a complete, you know, insurmountable obstacle? Or is it just a temporary one that. Yeah, you have to figure it out. It's not how you thought it was going to go. But you're going to find a solution and you're going to move past it to go create that life. I found that this tool can be very helpful because what we think is, you know, where our minds go is like, everything's going to fall apart. I'm never gonna, you know, be able to do what I want to do. Like, everything's going to be horrible. 

[00:32:52] I'm gonna, you know, whatever all the negative things and really extremely rarely is that how it works out. You know, my husband's scenario is a great example of that. He's like, I'm doing exactly what I always wanted to do. It really was like a very minor blip now in his life. So thinking about it in that way, you can recognize, you know what? This feels super bad right now. We're not minimizing how you feel right now, you know? Yes, it feels super awful and. 

You're going to work through this. If you do those dos right, you find those supportive people, you find some good advice. You work on processing these feelings. You find people you can talk to about what's true for you, and you really work on believing in yourself. You're going to get to where you want to go. I mean, it's inevitable. It really, really is. So this isn't to, like, cheer you up or try to be like, okay, so now you need to just be thinking positively about it or like, don't let this bother you. It's going to bother you. Of course it's bothering you, right? Of course it is. But you can also recognize. You know what? This is a temporary thing. It's a temporary setback. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to keep going and I'm going to I'm going to just keep going until I figure it out. I'm going to. It's similar actually to permanent weight loss, to be quite honest with you. 

[00:34:13] Going to just keep going until I figure this out. I'm going to figure out what's the best thing for me. I'm going to keep going. And I don't have to make this mean negative things about me that aren't true. Okay, so the do's are feel your feelings, find the supportive people, and practice believing in yourself. I want to end with letting you know. Another thing that my husband mentioned on his own, which I thought was really impactful, especially for anybody who's listening to this and maybe I should have led with this earlier, but hopefully there are people in other places in their lives still listening to this. 

You know, my husband said that nobody really encouraged him or like told him to keep going. Not that they didn't think he should keep going, but nobody said that. None of his friends said, hey man, that is so weird. You need to apply again. Like, or you need to try again or something weird happened because that's not right. Like nobody really expressed that to him. No one said you should keep going. None of the advisors, nobody said like, yeah, you know what? Don't let this stop you. And I don't know why they didn't do that. I think in our culture, I think in our greater culture, but within the culture of medicine, that often is something that we just don't do. Instead, we just kind of avoid talking about it if at all possible.

[00:35:30] It's like, might as well be saying it's like, it's almost like people feel like it's contagious. You know, it's like, oh my gosh, you've got like some bad energy around you. And I don't want any of that to rub off on me. So I'm just gonna kind of avoid. And we know that people are very uncomfortable in kind of, you know, scenarios like this and they don't want to talk about it. And what I want to do is encourage you to talk to anybody that you know, that this has happened to, to encourage them, to help them to know what their strengths are, to tell them what you know to be true about them. 

You know, like it is really kind of like oxygen for them. And so my husband was saying that he really had to tell himself that he really had to tell himself, like, no, I'm going to keep going. I'm going to do this, I can do this, you know? And that really came from himself, from within. And so last week, again, we also talked about sharing positive feedback with our colleagues. And this is another example of that of just being willing not to lie, not to say things that aren't true, but to let them know that they have a lot to offer that, you know, even if it maybe isn't in that field. Whatever they do, the people that they take care of are going to be lucky to have them like things like that really, really go a long way. 

[00:36:52] And I think probably for people who've had this experience, they're more likely to do it. But for those of us who didn't have the experience, even more important for us to understand, like it is awkward, it does feel weird and do it anyway. Please. It really, really makes a difference. And when we're talking about improving the culture of medicine, making this a more enjoyable environment to work in for everybody, it's these little things really do make a difference. Okay, I'm going to leave it there. My final message. If you hear nothing else, please know that if the match doesn't go your way, you're going to be okay. 

You're going to be better than okay. It may be hard to see that right now, but you really are going to be okay. This is a painful, hard, hard time and you're going to totally get through it and you're going to still have a great life. So do not, please make this mean anything negative about you or what's possible for you. You're still going to be an amazing doctor who's going to help so many people, and that is the truth.

Thank you so much for your attention today. Please share this. Share this now. Share this in the future with anybody who you believe could benefit from it. Take care. Have a great week. Bye bye. Ready to start making progress on your weight loss goals? For lots of free help, go to katrinaubellmd.com and click on Free Resources.