Couples Matching

Couples matching with one of you trying for something like Ortho can be difficult and stressful at times. I did it a year ago, and I'll relate what worked for us.

First, she was a very strong applicant applying to pediatrics. That helped a lot, as she got interviews everywhere we applied.

Second, we picked cities where we'd be interested in living, and programs we'd like to apply to -- and a lot of them. I think I ended up applying to about 50-60 programs in the end.

Then, we basically applied to all of the programs within each geographical area/city that we were interested in. This takes a lot of (ugghh) communication between the two of you to figure out what each of you are really interested in for a program (academics, individual programs, location, etc.).

Once you have a bit of an idea of what you each want, and where you each want it -- after quite a bit of research on both of your parts -- then you should start thinking about places to rotate. Base this on places you really want to visit, where you think you might have a shot at matching, and with a program that fits each of those criteria for your significant other within the same geographical area. Keep in mind that you do not have to be at the same hospital for the couples match -- you decide on combinations of programs in order. So, assuming you want to live together (which is the reason to do a couples match), you just decide how far between the hospitals you're comfortable with. You then rank each permutation of programs in order.

When interview season came around, she got offers within minutes of applying (literally), and I had to wait quite a while. She pushed off her far away (needed to fly to get there) interviews to the end of January, clustering them geographically as much as possible, waiting to see if I got any in each of those cities -- cancelling entire cities as needed.

Finally, for ranking the programs, just figure out what combinations are the best for the two of you. Most people would say that since you're going for Ortho, you should put more weight into where you want to go. I would not argue too much, but I would say to obviously be reasonable -- if you're deciding between two fairly equal programs, don't make your significant other rank East Podunk U. over the Cleveland Clinic (assuming either of you wants to live in Cleveland). Anyway, you get the point. If your signigicant other decides to apply for ENT, Derm, Neurosurgery, or Ortho, well then things get even more difficult -- but hey, you've each gotta go for what you want in life.

In the end, we got our first couples rank, at two hospitals about 45 minutes apart -- very happy with how things turned out.

Good luck, hope this helps.

I couples matched last year. I think everything mentioned above is correct. One thing I would suggest is communicating openly with the programs you apply to. My wife applied in OB/GYN. It seemed that most of the programs she applied to sent interview offers before the orthopaedic surgery department sent interview offers. I sent an email to a few of the orthoapedic program directors letting them know that my wife would be interviewing in the OB/GYN department and that we were interested in couples matching at that program. I think this resulted in getting one or two interview offers that I may not have received otherwise (i.e. Rush and Johns Hopkins).

I was originally told by my dean to try to hide the fact we were couples matching -- at least for me. I kept it off my application, since we were not yet engaged at the time. In the end, I'm not sure if this helped or hurt with the interviews -- it may scare one or two, but it can definitely help get interviews at others (especially if the other is a strong candidate for their field). I think I may have missed out on a few by not having that on the application.

While you may think that programs abide by the rules by not asking the questions that they are forbidden by law to ask -- such as marital status, family planning concerns, etc -- they almost always ask these questions. Despite the fact that the couples match was not on my application, it came up at all but one interview (Rochester played by the rules). At the end of the day, since it wasn't mentioned, I just informed them anyway for their records.

Be open and upfront -- things will work out for the best.

Thanks for your input guys. Did you or do you recommend doing away rotations at the same place? same city? Thanks.