Queue?

     You may find yourself staring at the title of our blog and feeling about bit confused. What in the world is "Queue?"Before I answer your question, let me (Anna) start by giving you a bit of background knowledge.

     Kevin and I have been married for 2 years today. Our life together has been one adventure after another. We met at college in Jefferson City, TN, got married in Greer, SC, and then after finishing college moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where Kevin attends medical school. Kevin joined the Air Force and was blessed to receive a scholarship for his schooling, in return for 4 years of service active as a doctor post medical school/residency.

   As you can see from the first few paragraphs, our lives are in a constant state of movement. Many of you may not quite know the commitment that comes with Medical School. First, you must get in. If you are lucky, after applying to about 20 schools, you receive 2 or 3 interviews, and get accepted 1 place. Thousands upon thousands apply each year,  and the majority of them get rejected. Most applicants take more than a year to get in. Kevin was one of the few to get in not 1 but 3 different schools his first year applying.

   We selected KCUMB in Kansas City because it not only had the best program, but also because it was in a relatively large city with great culture and areas to live. However, it was also over 12 hours away from home. We are guaranteed to stay in KC for at least 2 years. You see, medical school is made up of 4 years, the first 2 being solid book work, while the last 2 are spent working along side doctors in many different specialties. Allopathic medical schools (which give an M.D) all have large hospitals that are attached to them, allowing all of their students to spend their 3rd and 4th years at that hospital. KCUMB is an Osteopathic medical school (which gives a D.O which is Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine). D.O students learn all that M.D students learn, as well as the majority of what a chiropractic student would learn. They practice in all of the same fields as an M.D and are considered equals in the medical community.However, KCUMB does not have a large hospital attached to it, but they send their student doctors around the area to different practices or hospitals to get their clinical hours in 3rd and 4th year. Sadly, there are not enough hospitals in the area to accommodate the 250 students in each class. So, KCUMB allows their students to go all over the USA to get those hours in.

What exactly does that look like for us? Well, we will enter a match program this coming year that will tell us where we go for 3rd and 4th year. We hope and pray that God will allow us to stay here in KC, because we have friends, a church, and a wonderful life here. But, there is a chance that we will have to relocate to a different city, or even a different part of the US! (fingers crossed and big prayers for KC).  At the end of his 2nd year and 4th year of medical school Kevin will take a huge test known as the USMLE/ COMLEX which is the test to receive your medical license, which requires at least 6 months of study and preparation while maintaining his normal class hours(8 AM to 5 PM and studying until midnight). I am thinking you are beginning to see how stressful this medical school stuff really is! ;)

After 3rd and 4th year we will enter the residency match. Basically all of the new medical school graduates (M.D and D.O) will enter this match. You rank hospitals in your chosen speciality. Those hospitals also list out their top choices of students for their programs. The students are matched based on which hospitals want them most and where they'd like to go most(basically, who do I want and who wants me). We are not guaranteed to match, no one is, although all KCUMB students match almost every year! We will have to enter 2 different match programs; the military match and the civilian match. So, we may do the residency years in the Air Force, it really just depends on what Kevin specializes in! (Air Force hospitals don't have a residency program from every specialty)

Residency programs last between 3 and 12 years. Kevin's fields of interest are between 3 and 5 years. Those years are grueling. He will work about 80 hours a week and make about minimum wage. He will be a licensed physician at this point, but he will be working under highly experienced doctors during that time.

Finally, after all is said and done and Kevin is a licensed and certified D.O, we will then be active in the Air Force, which puts us into a whole new world! They will station us at a base where Kevin will practice as a doctor in the field he specializes in. During that time he may be deployed, we may have to move, or we may get lucky and stay in the same place all 4 years! We have no clue! During all of this time, I (Anna) will be along for the ride! I considered going back to school to become a marriage and family counselor and work in adoptive counseling, but as you can see, we kind of have our hands full with medical school and the military. We decided ultimately it would be best for our marriage and our future family for me to wait to go back to school.

So now that you know a bit about our story, let's talk about our title. Our lives are in a constant state of waiting. Waiting to know where we are going to move, what Kevin is going to specialize in, when I am going to go back to school, etc. A "Queue" is a line in which people stand to wait. We have found that our lives are truly not our own. They are owned and orchestrated by a God who has all of those answers, so we are simply waiting on Him to provide us with them. Therefore, we find ourselves standing in "The Queue" of life. If you want to be clever and give our title a second meaning, we can be playful and look at it like Life in the "Q" family ;).

So that is us, this is our story, this is our life. We look forward to sharing our adventures with you!

Kevin and Anna Quinby