If you have any questions

Wes has been living a comedy of errors for the past several weeks as he tries to become a licensed doctor in Illinois. This requires him taking the USMLE Step 3 and filling out a lot of paperwork. He has spent an untold amount of time on the phone (well, actually, it's told since we have a cell phone bill that shows exactly how many minutes he spent -- this is the only month he has ever talked on the phone more than me), and he still hasn't been successful. He's rather eager to get it done, as being licensed means he can get paid for moonlighting in the EDOU (observation unit) at $80 an hour. Until he is licensed, he just works there are part of his regular shifts for his regular pay.

You'd think that a group of people with 20 or more years of education wouldn't have such a hard time doing something like this, but every single person in his class has had the same problems. Wes made if further than anyone. Several fellow doctors are licensing in California, where the process is easier, and then they can change it to Illinois through a much less grueling process. But Wes has persisted in Illinois.

After pulling together any insane number of documents and submitting a hefty check, Wes called last week to find he still had not done everything right. Although he had submitted all of the paperwork successfully, he had sent his USMLE Step 1 and 2 scores to the "federation" and not to the USMLE Step 3 people. Now, it would seem entirely reasonable that the USMLE 1 and 2 people would be the same as the USMLE Step 3 people, or that they at least freely shared information. But no. And on the day Wes called to learn that the scores had been sent to the wrong place, he also learned that USMLE Step 3 people had to receive his test scores by the very next day or his whole application would be returned while the office closed for a month and changed the application procedures. So Wes called the USMLE Step 1 and 2 people who forwarded the scores electronically that very day. Only when Wes called back later in the day to verify that they had been received, he learned that Illinois was the only state in the country that would not accept the scores electronically. So he called back to the USMLE Step 1 and 2 offices and asked them to overnight the scores. Except Wes could not give them a check that day to pay for the overnight services (and evidently they couldn't take a credit card over the phone), and so his scores might go out the next day if there happened to be an overnight package going. Could he call back the next day to verify if that had happened?

So he waited, fortunately accepting this all with some humor. Yesterday, while he was on the phone with Dell, he got a voicemail from the USMLE Step 3 office. I would transcribe it word for word if could (ending with "If you have any questions, please call the federation's office at ###), but the gist was that they received his test scores (which are in the top 1% of the country) one day late. One day. Consequently, while they could approve his application, they would have to return his paperwork to take the USMLE Step 3 test, and he would have to wait until the end of September to reapply to take it. The new fee is $100 more. And, oh, once the policies change -- he'll have to send his test scores to the federation, which is what he had done in the first place.