Marrying a future doctor?

[perez639]

Very true! Sometimes they have a bed where docs can grab a quick nap. Single room, single bed thank goodness. Or at least that was the set up in th ICU at my internship. Not sure if this is the case at all hospitals.

Sorry guys I messed up here. Technically, the nurse administers the meds and therefore is the last check before the med is given to be wary of the DOSAGE! Not blindly give! We are all human and need to watch out for each other in the medical profession. None of us are perfect and errors happen sometimes.

 

[Brian_C]

Regarding residency, yes, when you’re on call at a hospital with a residency, typically there are rooms for the residents to sleep. My wife did her residecy at the same hospital associated w/ her med school (we didn’t want to move!) and there was a whole floor of a wing that was basically a dorm! It was too funny since my wife never lived the dorm life!

As for pager call, yeah, it depends on specialty. With my wife’s practice, 6 or the 7 pediatricians take call so they rotate every six nights, every six saturdays, then every six saturday/sundays. But yeah, if you’re a specialist, you many times have to be more available. But for the little issues, typically a nurse can handle those. My wife’s practice is pretty special here in town as far as the doctors taking the calls directly without going thru a nurse, first. But that’s one reason they have a good business!

Ditto on med school dificulties. My wife, even though she had a 3.99 gpa as an undergrad took three tries to get in to med school. Since she didn’t graduate big ol’ LSU as an undergrad, I think her app was given less weight. It took her finally getting a REALLY high score on the MCAT before she got in. In the meantime she worked a year as an EKG tech at a hospital and then went on to pharmacy school for a year. Her third try was her last and thankfully she made it. Most med schools don’t have huge class sizes. My wife’s class started out at 100 students and 87 of those ended up graduating.

Now, one thing I would caution. While yes, the old saying about the person who graduates last in his class is still a doctor, med school gpa CAN make a big difference in where you get into residency. Surgery residencies are pretty tough to get into. You’d have to take tougher electives AND do well in them to have a good chance of going where you want. My wife’s profs kept telling her to consider surgery or at least OB/GYN but she said “No way!” She wanted to be able to spend a lot of time with the family and it’s worked out well. Since she was so highly ranked in her class, she had no trouble getting into resdency here and was a very desireable doctor when she finished. Honestly, no one else ranked that high picked peds…

Anyway, I meandered away from residency matching. Back to that point, high grades in med school affect your attractiveness to residency programs. While many hospitals have family practice residencies, as soon as you start getting into more and more exotic specialties, the number of programs dwindle. Your final year of med school, you need to physically visit the programs you might be interested in. Typically this is over the winter months. Then you submit your choices to the residency match coordinator. You rank the residencies you want to attend. At the same time, they decide if they want you. In the spring, dreaded “Match Day” comes. There’s typically a big program where your name is called and your handed a slip of paper w/ the residency that has matched up with you. If your first choice picked you, that’s where you go. So on and so forth. I forget exactly how many you can pick from. But if you “match” with your number one pck, you have to go there-even if you also got selcted by your 2nd, 3rd, and 4th choices. Now, um, can you see a problem here? What happens if you don’t match with any of your programs? It happens. If you picked several highly competative programs without great grades, you may not be picked by any of them. Well, that’s when the real fun starts. Then you get in what’s called “the Scramble!” There’s a list of programs that didn’t fill all there slots and you try to get into one of those as quickly as possible as everyone gets this list at the same time nationwide. You’re forced very quickly to decide if you still want to take the same specialty, maybe just not where you want…Or you can pick a different specialty entirely! It’s crazy. I know some of my wife’s friends who may have had ambitions to be in residency programs in Dallas who may have ended up in somewhere like Omaha!

As to your last post, there were a few people in my wife’s class who came from non-tradtional backgrounds. She had a few pharmacists and a couple of lawyers, even!

Sorry for being a bit detailed, but med school is a big life choice! It’s good to be prepared!

 

[InLight247]

I think you ought to consider him as a person before his profession. As far as I know, many other professions require frequent over work, such as people in finance, computer, engineering, they all can easily work way over 60 hours per week.
Especially nowadays most companies expect one person to do three people’s work.

Only you know how committed you are to each other. Yes, you are still young, but also keep in mind it is not easy at all to find someone who is attracted by you and also is attractive to you. Actually it is very hard. Did you read the other thread here about feeling never be able to get married?

On top of earnest prayers and discernment, it won’t hurt to talk this over with your parents. Usually, Mom knows the best.

God bless!

 

[petitfleur]

In the light makes a good point that I was trying to make. I was not implying that a husband who made less mony was someone to be less proud of. My point was simply that you could still be happy in a marriage despite the obviouse obsticle of a husband not home as much as most husbands. If you love each other and share core values you can still have a succesful marriage.

 

[gmarie21]

I understand your concern. One thing I’d like to point out, if you do marry him and start a family, remember, your children DO NOT need to be on a 8 pm - 6 or 7 am bedtime schedule. And if you feel called to homeschooling, the same applies. If your husband works late hours and arrives home at 10pm, then your children’s bedtime should be around midnight and wakeup time 10 or 11 am. I know some will disagree with me regarding this advice, but the kids need sleep, it just doesn’t need to be within a certain hour time frame that everyone else does. My dd’s dad has late hours (we hope to be able to marry, we’ll hear about his former marriage hopefully within the next 6 months or so) and since she was a baby, she has always had a bedtime around 10 or 11 pm because I didn’t mind (he would stop by after his job) and her wake up time would be later so that he could spend maximum amount with her before and after work. At first I felt guilty, but then I befriended a married woman with 4 children at church (she homeschools) and they all go to bed around midnight because they all are nightowls and just sleep later in the day because of her husband’s schedule. My brother works late hours (sometimes doesn’t get home until 10 pm) and my nephew and niece have a bedtime around 10 pm so that my brother can spend time with him when he gets home (except for those few nights when he arrives home closer to or later than 10).

 

[Brady_W]

I wouldn’t worry to much about him wanting to be surgeon yet, I just got into med school, and people already are changing their minds everyday of what specialty they want to pursue. Especially the ones with kids.

Someone up above mentioned its not as hard as you think to get into med school. No offense, I think they should do some more research. It took me two years, two MCATS, and many other things. I had to compete against 2100 other applicants for a class of 175.

I hope he’s thought about this for awhile. If he hasn’t started his pre-req’s, the fastest you can complete those is in two years, and just the basics doesn’t give you a very good knowledge base for the MCAT. He needs to take upper level biology courses, and extra biochem (on top of 4 semesters of chem, 2 sems of biology and physics) if he wants to smash the MCAT. Trust me, that’s one mean test.

 

[Brady_W]

I don’t know where he wants to apply, but to have a good chance at acceptance at a lot of school he prolly needs a 3.65 science GPA (Math, Chem, BIOL, Phys) and above a 30 on the MCAT.

 

[perez639]

I had to compete against 2100 other applicants for a class of 175.

Wow!! Congrats to you! That is daunting!

I hope he’s thought about this for awhile. If he hasn’t started his pre-req’s, the fastest you can complete those is in two years, and just the basics doesn’t give you a very good knowledge base for the MCAT. He needs to take upper level biology courses, and extra biochem (on top of 4 semesters of chem, 2 sems of biology and physics) if he wants to smash the MCAT. Trust me, that’s one mean test.

Yes. the past year and a half he has worked on creating a plan and we are trying to work in a small wedding after all of his preqs and MCAT. I am the one who has become nervous bc I am aware that you cannot rely on just one school when you apply. He is hoping for University of Colorado, among many others that would involve a big move.

 

[Brady_W]

are you residents of Colorado, thats a state school, it will be hard to get in if your not a resident, although I have heard good things about it. Colorado just opened a new D.O school to, i’m sure he’s looked into that too?

 

[Brian_C]

I dunno about a D.O. program. Seems like one more obstacle to overcome… No offense to any osteopaths on here, but everyone I know murmurs about them about the same way they would if the person had an 11 toes or something… Take that with a grain of salt, though…

 

[Brady_W]

i’ve heard the same, I think osteopath’s are pretty much equal to the allopath’s but M.D’s tend to look down on them I think. But i’ve also heard that its getting a lot better.

 

[Fitz]

My newphew is a young doctor and he met his wife in Med school so she is a doc too. They have two children now and they work in the same practice as Internists. The grandparents help watch the kids on the days they both work and they each take a day off different and are home with the kids. The kids are very happy and well adjusted. I know it has been very hard work, but they are happy and loving parents.

What I think it comes down to is that you will need to be supportive of your spouse no matter what career path they choose. I know raising a family is very hard, but I will tell you it is so worth it. I am taking my youngest to college tomorrow. I have three already out of college and out working. I look back now and remember the hard times, but I do know those times were our challenge and those times brought us closer to each other.

May God bless your future if you do marry. Being a doctor and a nurse is a very good profession and we all know you must be dedicated. Being a parent on top of that is even more demanding. However, it can all work out with God’s help. Don’t forget to ask for that!

 

[perez639]

are you residents of Colorado, thats a state school, it will be hard to get in if your not a resident, although I have heard good things about it. Colorado just opened a new D.O school to, i’m sure he’s looked into that too?

Yes, CO residents and I am pretty sure he is not going the D.O. route.

 

[perez639]

What I think it comes down to is that you will need to be supportive of your spouse no matter what career path they choose. I know raising a family is very hard, but I will tell you it is so worth it. I am taking my youngest to college tomorrow. I have three already out of college and out working. I look back now and remember the hard times, but I do know those times were our challenge and those times brought us closer to each other.

Agreed, a career or change in should not pull us away from another. Perhaps this is a test. A growth phase to bring us closer and a time to branch out from each other and in a sense work with a goal of serving others.

Just to throw this out there I am reading an amazing book called Healing The Culture by a priest (Spitzer) and a MD. It is amazing and applies in great depth to careers, relationships, happiness, life and death issues!

May God bless your future if you do marry. Being a doctor and a nurse is a very good profession and we all know you must be dedicated. Being a parent on top of that is even more demanding. However, it can all work out with God’s help. Don’t forget to ask for that!

We try to make a weekly date of never missing mass with each other. The future can be overwhelming and I have to remind myself many times to take it one day at a time.

 

[smallcat]

In a lot of ways, getting into medical school is the hardest part. Once you’re in, they make it really, really hard for you to leave! If you’re willing and able to move around the country, you can get into a school if you’re a decent student (and it sounds like your fiance is). WRT the MCATs, you honestly don’t need more than the required prereqs in order to do well. If he’s really worried about the test itself, he can always take a test prep course.

In my experience, med schools are eager for those who stand out from the crowd- and having an English major could be a real benefit that way. Sounds like he’s got his head on straight and knows what to do in order to make his goal happen.

As so many have said, I don’t think it’s really the doctor/surgeon thing so much that needs to be discussed. You need to figure out (and maybe you already have) if your priorities about life, work, and family balance mesh with your future husband’s. If he’s a workaholic, it won’t matter if he’s in medicine or law or business or computers. He’ll still work 70-hour weeks and travel and be away from home too much for your well-being. If he’s committed to family and to *being with *his family, not just financially providing for them, he will be able to make that happen as a physician. You may have to put up with some rough years in residency, as he won’t have much control over his hours during those years, but he will be able to spend time with family, if that is his priority, once he is finished.

Also, residencies vary widely- a general surgery residency is only 5 years, and primary care residencies (peds, internal medicine, family practice) are only 3, but fellowships (cardiac, pediatric, transplant, etc etc) can easily add another 5 years to the mix. Depending on what he does, he doesn’t necessarily have to be in training until his late 30’s.

 

[perez639]

Only you know how committed you are to each other. Yes, you are still young, but also keep in mind it is not easy at all to find someone who is attracted by you and also is attractive to you. Actually it is very hard. Did you read the other thread here about feeling never be able to get married?

Yes, we are committed to our faith and this is hard to find. Funny thing is when we first met I was not sure if I liked him much. With time it grew.

On top of earnest prayers and discernment, it won’t hurt to talk this over with your parents. Usually, Mom knows the best.

God bless!

The parents love him but are old fashioned and not too keen about me doing most of the providing in the beginning. I dont mind as much. So its a little harder to talk to them because they are first and foremost looking out for their daughter. Their questions include what if children come along and you all are far from family? My mom was a stay at home mom her whole life and not the biggest fan of day care.

 

[InLight247]

The parents love him but are old fashioned and not too keen about me doing most of the providing in the beginning.

I understand. I am a mother, I may have the same concern for my daughter.

However, I was the one who supported my husband through his Ph.D. study. Though it was a different type of doctor, none the less it took years to accomplish. Looking back, I have no regret at all that I supported him. We had our daughter in the beginning of his Ph.D. program.

 

[muffinmojo]

I don’t know where else I’ll get the chance to ask so many Catholic doctors/residents/med school students, so I hope I’m not derailing the thread too much!

A friend of mine is planning on going to med school, and will graduate from college when she’s 20 with a degree in biochemistry(yeah…I know lol). She thinks she might want to get married at some point, but doesn’t think she could be married, Catholic, and in med school at the same time. Too much work, the chance of having kids, time away from her spouse. How many people in med school are married? How many have kids? Is it undoable, especailly if someone’s a workaholic(she certainly is)?

 

[Dr_Paul]

I got married near the end of my graduate school training. We had our first child while I was in medical school, our second when I was in residency, our third while I was in fellowship training, and the next two while I was establishing my place as a junior faculty member. Was it easy? No. Has it been an incredible blessing? Absolutely. Would I recommend it to anyone else considering a medical career? Absolutely.

 

[perez639]

I got married near the end of my graduate school training. We had our first child while I was in medical school, our second when I was in residency, our third while I was in fellowship training, and the next two while I was establishing my place as a junior faculty member. Was it easy? No. Has it been an incredible blessing? Absolutely. Would I recommend it to anyone else considering a medical career? Absolutely.

Awesome to hear your success with your marriage!