Terrence Fitzgeorge recalls the joy he felt in January of 2012 upon learning that he had gained admission to The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. It had been his dream to one day become a “Wildcat MD” for as long as he could remember, which owing to a series of immature decisions as a college undergraduate had been at least three. His experience at Feinberg over the ensuing four had been overwhelmingly positive. He’d made lifelong friends and fallen in love with renal physiology and is now poised to become a transplant nephrologist and a partner in a botox clinic. For all that Feinberg has given him, though, he finds himself now left wondering how it could have failed him so spectacularly.

Terrence joined his peers on the morning of March 18 on the third level of the Streeterville location of local pizza purveyor Gino’s East. He brought a change of clothes. “I figured I might want to change,” he recalls. His backpack contained a quart of kefir that he had planned on drinking for breakfast.

Upon arriving, it quickly became clear that arrangements had not been made to ensure he and his peers would be assigned lockers for the event. “So basically I’m standing there with my change of clothes the whole time, completely lockerless. I mean it was unbelievable.”

The availability of a locker during each of his clinical rotations had, for Terrence, become a foregone conclusion. “I just felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me.”

Terrence ultimately will be heading to the Dakotas in June. He’s excited for a fresh start and has chosen not to attend the Feinberg graduation in May. “I just can’t muster any enthusiasm for this place anymore. The thought of donning the regalia frankly makes me ill.” Terrence has chosen to take up his grievance with the national medical school accrediting bodies. “No Match Day lockers? Can’t happen again. This school needs to wake up.” Terrence aims to make them.