It’s today, March 15th, of course. It was the 74th day of the ten-month long Roman Calendar each month of which had several key days – among them the Kalends (first day of the month coinciding with the New Moon), the Nones (seventh day coinciding with the First Quarter moon), and the Ides (the fifteenth day or Full Moon). You most likely remember from reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caeser that the Ides of March is the day that Julius Caeser was assassinated.
What physicians recognize about the Ides of March is that it is Match Day – the day that senior medical students learn where they will be doing their post-graduate training. I remember that day. I remember visiting Maricopa County Hospital, the VA hospital in Tuscon, Arizona, and the Central Texas Medical Foundation’s (CTMF) Internal Medicine program at Brackenridge Hospital in the months before the Ides of March. I ranked CTMF as #1, and the others #2 and #3.
Each training program ranked its applicants in a similar way, and the matching service then did its best to bring together the highest ranked applicants with their highest ranked program preferences. In my case, it worked out fine. In fact, most of my classmates were paired with their first or second choice. A few unfortunates did not match and spent the Ides of March making panicked phone calls as they tried to get into a vacancy somewhere. Alas!
I don’t often think about the Ides of March. I did today because I got an email from my medical Alma Mater celebrating Match Day at Baylor College of Medicine. As a matter of tradition, forty-five years after my Match Day, it still occurs on the Ides of March. 🙂