"What about your nice volcanologist friend?" asks my mom, referring to a Ph.D.-bound platonic pal studying the petrology of subduction zone magma.

But I don't want just any doctor. I want someone who knows his periarthritis from his pericarditis. Someone who can pronounce oculomucocutaneous and has unlimited access to the narcotics cabinet. Someone who reads the Journal of Colorectal Disease and writes essays on the moral permissibility of randomized clinical trails. Like, for fun.

I want a capital-M, capital-D doctor.

My first inclination in Mission: Finding Dr. Right is to check El Fuego on Chestnut Street, where I know I've seen dudes in scrubs chowing tacos by the dozen. But fear of accidentally picking up an orderly leads me to a more credible source: my next-door neighbor Ben Ngo, a first-year resident at Jefferson. Ben's training to be a gastroenterologist (that's "guts and butts" for you flunkies).

I corner Ben in our hallway and start the interrogation: Do doctors like to be approached or would they rather do the approaching? Are the Grey's Anatomy jokes old yet? Is it uncouth to invent weird infectious diseases and get all Munchausen's Syndrome in the ER?

Ben tries to pull that "doctors are people too" crap, but I'm not buying it. I accuse him and his bell-curve-bungling friends of being cold-blooded androids that travel in packs and only date dumb, busty nurses. While he agrees docs can be cliquey, he says I've got the nurse thing all wrong. "Actually, many of us date other doctors."

When he starts doling out the "just be yourself" advice, I know we've reached an impasse.

Fortunately, last Thursday was Match Day, the celebratory finale in a barbaric process akin to sorority rushes, whereby fourth-year medical students find out if and where they've been accepted for their residency. Ben warns me that some people don't get their first or second or even 60th choice, and as such, Match Day could feel more like Suicide Fest 2006. I decide to take my chances and join a pack of aggressive single women at Old City club 32°, host of Philadelphia's largest Match Bash.

Much to our dismay, we can't tell the Sanjay Guptas from the Gomer Pyles, and no one is wearing name tags. Would a little "Hello, My Name Is Ariel Goldblum and I'm Great at Giving Pelvic Exams" have been too much to ask for?

I pull out my reporter's notebook in hopes it'll draw positive attention, but it only attracts a bouncer, a greasy financial analyst and a suburban golf course manager. We eventually narrow the ultra-slim pickings down to a bearded urologist and a graying pediatrician, but I eliminate the urologist on account of his rhythmless dancing and the pediatrician for liking kids.

I'm in bed by 2 a.m., but not before I slip a note under Ben's door: "Well, that was disastrous."

Back to Plan A: Did I tell you I might have leprosy?

Questions? Comments? Are you a hot, Jewish doctor in need of a physical? E-mail ashlea.halpern@citypaper.net. No phone calls.