Why Alyssa chose the Internal Medicine Residency at Michigan

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Hi everyone, my name is Alyssa Chang. I am finishing up my intern year and I'm from the east coast, from the Philadelphia area. So I couples matched and I have to say that probably played a pretty large factor into it. Um but my partner in medicine also is in the internal medicine program. So we're finishing up into near together and when we were kind of embarking on this journey, we kept a very like open mind. So I'm from the east coast, he's from the west coast. My dad is actually from the midwest, which kind of prompted us to kind of consider at least that is an option. And then we looked more into kind of what we're looking for a program. Honestly University of Michigan fit a lot of that. And also since there's two of us, we want to look for a bigger program and really it checked off a lot of our boxes. I think we were very pleasantly surprised by our experience with the interview. Um and then we really couldn't say no. I think the biggest thing is that I know during the interview the common theme was like you come here for the residents and I absolutely felt that in the sense of like everyone talked about their co interns and how much of it really does... you bond, I think you bond off the highs, you also bond off of sometimes the experiences where maybe you shed a tear, maybe you're like really tired. I think the thing I didn't realize is how much I bond with the senior residents. Um not only have they provided amazing mentorship, but I really do have to think like we've just had such quality conversations and I think a lot of the interview focused more on just kind of who would be coming in with and I think what's really nice is it's not just you come with, but who is also there, and I think the family means it's not just your incoming class, it's either the people who have already graduated, the ones who are going to graduate and even the ones who just started the faculty have been amazing. Um I think it specifically came from faculty relationships from the attendings that have been on service. Um it's amazing how even if the attendings aren't on service for that long and even for us, I feel like we transition off service. Um it could be anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks, you really get to know the attending well. And I think even for the ones that I feel like I met when I was first starting off, it's really nice to see that if you know they're on a consult service or if you know, I don't know you see them in the hallway that they still recognize you. So I think I've been very surprised by the strength of the relationships built with faculty specifically attendings um in a short amount of time, I think um the biggest reservation I had was knowing that I have been like a home body. I think being in Philly has always been my home base. I have a pretty large family too. I was eager to try something different. That is like exactly why I think I wanted to push myself. Um I heard great things about the area, but sometimes like, you know, mentally that like you're ready for that, but I think at your core like, do you know, and um I have been so so happy with my experience here. So I think the biggest thing I'd want to like at least tell my old self or telling anyone else who has any reservations of just like take that leap of faith because you don't know how much you're gonna grow and knowing that home will always be home. Um but you can easily get a new home and then knowing that if you're going to go into a program that has so much support, it's gonna feel like a family away from a family um that you're never alone. And it also makes for a great reason for whenever you have vacation, go back home.