Update on Michael’s Travels

So, we posted what Michael wrote on Sunday about traveling to Pennsylvania for his interviews, and I thought I’d give a little update on how his travels went. After spending 12 hours in the Chicago airport, having his first flight cancelled, his second flight that he was on stand-by for to full for him to get on the plane, and his third flight repeatedly delayed for hours and finally cancelled due to mechanical problems, Michael was ready to give up on the interview in Pennsylvania altogether. He decided that there was no way to get to Pennsylvania in time for the interview the next morning, and started making plans to try to get to Washington state for the transitional year interview that he had scheduled for the day after the Pennsylvania one.

But he talked to the airline one more time and they were finally able to work out an early morning flight for him on Monday to get into Philadelphia. The airline put him up in a hotel Sunday night and he got 3 hours of sleep before getting up for his flight in the morning, which was delayed an hour because of fog. He got to Philadelphia, spent an outrageous amount of money on a rental car (because he had to pick it up in Philadelphia and drop it off in Harrisburg where he would be flying out the next day). He drove 3 hours from Philadelphia to Danville, PA, and had his interview at 1 pm (the interview was originally scheduled for 8 am, but they were nice enough to stick around and do it later for him). He said the interview felt a little rushed because it was later in the afternoon, but other than that it went great and he really likes their program there. He also said that Pennsylvania was a beautiful place and that he was told that the small town there was very family friendly and that the other residents there had been able to obtain inexpensive housing without difficulty. I asked him later if he would rank the Texas derm program or the Pennsylvania derm program higher on his list at this point, and he said he wasn’t sure – I guess it’s better to have lots of good programs to choose from than to worry about possibly being placed in a bad program that we don’t want.

So, after his interview he drove to Harrisburg, where his flight was cancelled. He knew he was going to miss his interview in Spokane, Washington the next day, but at least the program coordinator there was kind and said that he could reschedule that one for January. Since the original plan was for him to fly back into Boise on Tuesday and then fly out to Milwaukee on Wednesday, he tried to get them to let him fly straight to Milwaukee from Pennsylvania and save himself so much travel time, but the airlines would not allow that. So he tried to get a flight back to Boise so he would be here for his flight out to Milwaukee on Wednesday morning. They told him that they were going to charge him for that flight back to Boise, but after a long time on the phone with a number of supervisors, they told him they would let him fly back here without charging him, but just this once (which is ridiculous, because they cancelled his flight in the first place, so I don’t see how they could think they were justified in leaving him stranded on the other side of the country). But he finally was able to get them to let him come back – he spent his entire day yesterday on the airplane flying to Washington D.C., then to San Francisco, then to Boise. He got here after 7 pm last night, and left early this morning. He just called to say that he arrived in Milwaukee with no delays or other problems, so that’s a relief.

So, this week he has his Milwaukee derm interview, a Chicago derm interview, and a Los Angeles derm interview, and then he will return to Boise for a couple of days before going down to Salt Lake for a transitional year interview. Then he will not have any other interviews until January, unless any more get scheduled before then. Oh yeah, and he got one more derm interview invitation the other day to Cincinnati, Ohio. Just keep us in your thoughts and prayers these next couple of months as Michael continues this interview process that he will not have any more major travel problems and that he will be able to get to all of his interviews safely.