I cannot believe that it is already September and recruitment season is almost here. These were the apps that helped me keep my sanity through a wonderful fourth year that was full of adventure and excitement as I closed the book on that chapter of my life. 4th year was a lot of fun but still a lot of work and a TON of stress. These apps helped to relieve that stress.
***I am not sponsored by any of these apps/companies… I found them throughout the year and thought they were useful… I’m still using them!***
- NRMP PRISM app
This app, designed by the NRMP, was great for tracking the programs I applied to, interview dates, and they even had a ranking system. I have been telling every 4th year student about this app! (And, it’s free!) You choose which Match you want to enter (Main Residency vs. specialty like Urology, vs. fellowships), add your programs, and update once interviews get going. It was so helpful, and I already had a framework for my Rank Order List (again, easing the stress… a little).
Waze
Honestly, I’ve been using this app for a long time well before interview season. It’s a crowdsourced GPS that shows you the fastest route to your destination and it updates in real time so you can avoid wrecks and traffic jams. I spent so much time on the road driving to the majority of my interviews 😳 and this app saved me a lot of time. All I had to do was type in the address and drive. (It also shows you places to stop along the way…. where to get gas, restaurants, etc.)
Audible
In speaking of all that time on the road… after awhile, I grew bored of my iTunes and even the radio and I needed something else to stimulate my brain while the miles ticked by. Audible is a branch of Amazon and there so many choices. Some books are free, you can be ‘gifted’ your first book by a friend, or you can sign up for a membership (this is what I did) and get discounts on books. In the membership, you get one credit per month to use on any book (any $ amount), plus discount if you buy additional books (plus they have new free books pop up all of the time). I spent so much time on the road (I literally stopped clocking the hours because it was insane), but I would use my monthly credit toward the longest audiobooks I could find. I started the _Outlander_ series and some of them are 30-45 hours of audiobook… and some of them I listened to more than once. Now that my round of interview season is over, I still use this every day on my commute to and from work.
Calm
At the beginning of 4th year, I downloaded the Calm app to give meditating a try to see what it was about. I liked this (FREE!) app because it had lots of material on it that I found soothing. There was plain background noise (I use mountain lake, pictured above), guided and unguided meditations, and series of meditations (such as, A Week of Calm, A Week of Stress Relief, etc), and all of that was free. Each meditation is 10 minutes long or so. Since then, they have majorly upped their game. Now even the free version has daily meditations on topics to ponder, more series meditations, a section just for music, and–my favorite–SLEEP STORIES. I have such a hard time falling asleep when I am 1) alone 2) in unfamiliar places and 3) stressed about the next day’s interviews, all of which I was doing on a regular basis during interview season. My sleep was suffering during that time, but in using this app, I gained back a lot of peace. I still use this app every day, and I upgraded to the paid version so I have access to all of the content. They are constantly adding to the content, with new daily meditations, sleep stories, music, series, etc.
Those are my top choices for useful apps for 4th year. What apps did you find helpful?
Paging Dr. Allie 