Welcome, my name is Devine. This is episode 448 of the Devine Intervention

Podcast and to this podcast I'm going to be addressing the topic

what to do if you don't match, what to do if you don't match. What to do if you don't match. And I'll also give some miscellaneous advice for the upcoming match cycle.

So what do you do if you don't match? I'm just going to go right into it. Number one, you need to figure out why. Why, why, why?

Many times a good first point of call is to reach out to a program, the programs that you interview

that, do they have any feedback for you, that you know you're very likely going to go through

the process again. What feedback do they have? All they recommend that you do in the future to improve yourself. You'd be surprised, but you can get some very good information from those people. And wherever possible, honestly, try to

speak to people over the phone. Over the phone, people will likely give you honest advice and just tell you as it is than some

well-crafted email that some program coordinator or program secretary crafts for

people. Now also in terms of asking yourself why you need to do an

honest self-assessment. The thing is you can lie to your like at the end of the day you got to tell yourself the truth.

Maybe let me put it that way. You got to tell yourself the truth.

Many people they don't tell themselves the truth and then they wonder why things are going a certain way.

You need to tell yourself the truth. It's very easy sometimes to overestimate your capabilities and sometimes also underestimate

your capabilities. Believe it or not, you know, because again, I've worked in many cycles with tons of students from all over the world.

And you see some people, they really overestimate how good the application is.

You see them, they're talking themselves up a storm, saying,

oh, I want to match into these very competitive specialties in these very competitive parts of

the country, who I've always had this as a dream.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that. I mean, again, it's okay to dream, but you also sometimes have to be

realistic with what you have. If you have a dream, you need to work towards that dream. But you see some people, you know, they have like very mid-lane scores or they fail the USMLE exam or two. They have no connections, no research, nothing.

And they've graduated from med school for years

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