Join the discussion

Go to the Facebook group and join the discussion. What was the hardest thing to give up for your Dr.H's career?

Getting closer!

We are up to 155 followers! Start thinking up some fun giveaways and prizes for when we reach 200. When we get to 175, I'll start contacting people to set things up. Until then, if you have great ideas or are willing to host a prize, let me know!

And don't forget to check out the book club. I'm loving the book so far! Why don't they hand out this book as part of the required reading in med school? ;o)

Poll - How many cavities have you had?

New poll is up!

Also, I moved the subscription buttons up to the top temporarily. With the background problems we are having, it is difficult to read posts on the blog. So, feel free to subscribe to posts and comments so you can read them in your email. You can easily unsubscribe when things get fixed.

And please comment if you have questions for our "Happily Ever After" post that Jennifer and Gretchen will be doing for us. That isn't really what it is called. I don't know why I wrote that. The puppy is making me sleep-deprived!!!

Don't forget to check out our forum and Facebook group and say 'hello'!

After residency

Our very own Jennifer is going to be answering questions about post-residency life with her sweet friend Gretchen. Submit your questions on this post. Or maybe one of you computer geniuses can figure out how to set up a chat either on here, the forum or the Facebook group?

Blog Background

FYI- the company that supplies our background is going through a server change this week. The background will either not load, or might take hours to load through this weekend. We are sorry for the problem, but things should be resolved soon. Thanks for your patience!

The $555,000 student-loan debt

Anyone else read this?

Doctor Wives

Will you please allow me a mental spew? I couldn't sleep last night and all of these thoughts about the blog wouldn't leave me alone.

Philly is a town with a lot of colleges. As such, I've met quite a few wives of residents and med students. I tell them about this blog. I think it is a great source of information and support. Quite a few times, I've gotten the proverbial eye roll. I wonder why this is.

Does it seem self-serving to have a blog specifically for spouses of doctors? Do they think we get on here and write about how special we are because we are married to a doctor? Or get on here and talk about all of our money and cars? And why don't we talk about those things???

I'm proud of my husband. I'm proud of what he has accomplished and what he has been though. And I have amazed myself at what I've been able to endure as the wife of a doctor. Why can't we talk about those things without sounding vain, conceited, and self-promoting?

It seems that most of the wives on here are still in the trenches of med school and residency. Do we stop needing support after residency? Does it get so much easier that the need to find other doctor wives dissipates? Maybe it is just me, but I would LOVE to hear from wives who are done with residency. What was it like getting that first paycheck that was bigger than your yearly income as a resident? What exotic location did you travel to when money wasn't a factor? What thoughts crossed your mind when you moved into your dream house and furnished it without hand me downs? What was the first car you bought with leather seats, navigation system, power-everything? Did you cry tears of joy when you wrote your first 5-figure check to a charity that has touched your heart? How does it feel to look at a menu and not make decisions based on prices? Is it tons of fun to go shopping for clothes in brand-name stores and not the Salvation Army? And why can't we talk about these things without feeling like we are bragging??? Personally, I want to hear these stories. I want to hear what the light at the end of the tunnel brings. While I'm living in a crappy house, not even able to afford eating off the dollar menu at McDonald's, it might be kinda nice to hear what I have to look forward to!

Also, I've been thinking a lot lately about wives divorced from doctors. Did his career make an impact on your relationship? Was it aggravating as heck to go through the years of med school and residency and then divorce when he finally started making money? Were you still able to live comfortably off of alimony or did you need supplemental income?

See what my brain does to me at 2 am??? Am I the only one out there who thinks about these things?

My Quandary

We have 2 years left of residency and 3 kids. We are renting in our current location. The lease is up October 1. I love the town I live in, love the school the kids go to, love the park outside my neighborhood. Love the beach 6 blocks away. I HATE MY STREET.

As soon as I turn into my neighborhood, my heart sinks to my feet. After all we’ve been through, Chad being a doctor now, and I, with my master’s degree and matching student loan payment, and we live on a trashy, crack whore street. (Plus, our 916 sq ft. cinderblock structure is sub-par.)

My 8 year old has already been drug from school to school in this process and I don’t want to pull him out of a school he really likes.

The houses I find that seem reasonable for our family, on non-crack whole streets, seem to be unreachably out of our price range.

Throughout this whole process I have never had to live somewhere that I really don’t feel comfortable or at home, and that I’m just plain mortified to live.

Is anyone else struggling with this type scenario? Has anyone overcome this obstacle?

Insurance

Has anyone purchased disability insurance outside of what the residency provides?

Surprise and Congrats!!

My name is Aly, and I have been reading/commenting on the Lives of Doctors Wives blog for the past 6 months or so and am so appreciative of you and the other ladies for creating a place where I have found people who know what I am going through!

My husband is in month 2 of PGY1 and we all know how challenging that is on its own for both of us! Well surprise, surprise, I have suddenly found myself pregnant and due in March 2011. While we are thrilled (this is our first pregnancy) this was just not in the "plans" for his intern year! We at least wanted to wait until PGY3 to began trying...so much for those plans, right??? Has anyone else been through this? Any advice for surviving my first pregnancy while also still adjusting to the chaos of intern year? And when the baby arrives, husband will still have a few months to go until he is PGY2...how do I get through that time pretty much on my own (we are in NYC and all of my family and friends are back home in California)??? Any advice and words of widsom would be so appreciated!

Thanks so much in advance for taking the time to read this!

Poll - Has your DrH ever been stuck by a needle while treating a patient?

New poll is up. Have a great week!

The Medical Marriage Book Review

I am so excited that so many of you are interested in reading along and having a discussion. My guess is that even those of you without the time to read this book are interested in hearing about it also.

So that everyone has enough time to get the book and get some reading done we will have our first summary/discussion a week from today on Monday July 26th. So by then read the introduction and Chapter 1 Beating Stress Together and Chapter 2 What Stresses Medical Marriages?. I will write a brief summary and then we will discuss in comments...sound good?

The Medical Marriage

Over the 4th of July weekend we were at one of the attending's houses. He is getting ready to retire after many years as an OB/GYN. He is married (to his first and only wife) and has several grown children. Just as we were getting ready to leave his wife pulled me aside and handed me a book. She said that she had read the first addition many years ago and this addition that came out a few years ago and it helps.

The Medical Marriage is a book by Wayne Sotile and his wife Mary Sotile. Neither are physicians but both have worked with physician couples for many years. I had heard of this book before but have never read it. I love to read and spend a lot of time during the summers reading. I figured this summer sounded like a great time to read this book as well.

Some of you may have already read this book, have this book but have not read it, or have never heard of this book. I thought I would see if anyone else wants to have an online bookclub of sorts while reading this book. We can use the discussion forum for our chats or we can divide the chapters up and write posts about what we thought when we read them and use comments to discuss.

The book stresses the importance of having the physician spouse to read the book and complete the quizzes as well. My husband has agreed (begrudgingly) after we talked about how it only really works if we are both on the same page. We will see when he actually reads the chapter. Either way I am happy to post a few times as I go through the chapters but would really really like someone else to talk about what I read with. I have to tell you that even just reading the first few pages was very sobering. For the same reason I like this blog (to know that it is not just us, that it is really hard, that there is more stress, etc, etc) the book is reassuring and helpful to me. Let me know what you think.

End in Sight

Signing bonus, moving expenses, stipends, loan forgiveness, salary, non compete clauses, partnership tracks, OH MY!

These are the words that have been floating around our house lately. With the start of his last year of residency we are in the beginning stages of finding a job. It is very exciting yet very very overwhelming at the same time. Since my husband started residency three years ago we have carefully watched each of the outgoing residents try and navigate their way through the process of signing a contract. Some with more success than others.

We have heard the horror stories enough to know that we will have a lawyer review everything and we have a general sense of what we want/need. We also have a good idea location wise where we want to live. Since we are from KS and that is where most of our family is we are pretty sure we want to move back. KS has a hard time getting doctors in some areas so the recruitment of my husband has begun earlier than we thought with verbal job offers and the promise of contracts to review by the end of the summer. It would be nice to know where we are going to move to and to start looking at houses. We have been just surviving on our income and living in a tiny apartment for so long that it is overwhelming. My husband asked me the other day how much of a house we could afford on the salary figures being thrown around and to be honest I'm not quite sure. We will have 5 times more income but his loans will go into repayment (and even that amount will depend on the loan forgiveness) and we don't want to be house poor. With regards to the signing bonus do we pay off debt to get a better interest rate (will that have a big enough effect to give us a better interest rate) or do we roll it all into the down payment of a house that we may not live in forever (most doctors only stay at their first job for 3 years...or at least so we are told).

This is all in addition to the location, the partners themselves, the practice model (private vs hospital owned, etc).

Although we are excited to be at this point it is still a lot to wade through. It seems like only yesterday we were wading our way through residency applications, interviews, match, and relocating.

Poll - Do you receive additional income?

New poll is up. I thought med school was tight financially, but residency is even tighter! I wish Brad could start moonlighting. That would probably help! LOL!

New Year!

So the medical calendar begins in July, and we are again in a new year which means that most of us are in new chapters of our lives.

I was thinking maybe we could update everyone's info to the right? I'd be happy to do it. I cannot wait to see what all of you previously MSIVs matched into.

Although I'm going to miss the easy hours of medical school now that residency has begun, I am excited for my husband that he is finally a doctor!

P.S. I'm Marissa (I'm an admin but I apologize I was kind of M.I.A. the last six months due to the whole applying to residency and then moving, but my husband is now a PGY1 - neurosurgical resident.)

Prayer request

My 5 year old Mia is having and MRI/MRA part of her yearly followup for unilateral moyamoya. Please pray that everything is fine and we have good results. Thank you in advance. :)

Poll - Has your DrH ever treated you?

New poll is up. Happy day after the 4th of July!

Happy July 1st!

Happy July 1st, everyone! Yay for the start of a new medical year!