The Beauty, The Glamour, the Romance by Jennifer Patel
Is medical training a Cinderella story? Always trying to sneak into the ball instead of staying home to clean the oven? Too often people think that a doctor’s spouse is a spoiled princess. iMSN’s Jennifer Patel tells the real story – warts and all.
My kids love to watch the previews at the beginning of their Disney DVD’s. More than one of the movies has a trailer hyping the re-release of Cinderella where the movie-man voice says “The Beauty …The Glamour …The Romance.” And my two little boys say it right along with him in their best movie-man voices. When I heard it today it struck me – Mr. Movie-Man is describing MY life! The life of a doctor’s spouse is all about Beauty, Glamour, and Romance – is it not? You’re not convinced? Read on, my friend.
The Beauty!
As the mates of doctors we have a certain standard to uphold. We must be well tailored and well groomed for the department parties, lest someone think poorly of our spouse. During training we must meet this bar on a monthly income lower than what most hairstylists bring home. After training the income is better, but the loans are due – and the extra money I’d envisioned going for “beauty” seems to be swishing around the “educational loans totaling greater than the value of your first home” drain. I can’t tell you how many times during the training years my friends and I sat around wishing that at least one of us had had the good sense to go to cosmetology school so that we could all manage a nice haircut and some highlights. New eveningwear is as high on our priority lists as an elective root canal – but we simply can’t wear the same outfit to every function, lest we look like we’re not “good enough” to be married to a doctor! Gym memberships are a luxury most of us cannot afford, and who has the time when we’re essentially solo parents?Speaking of solo parenting and beauty … well, let’s just say I look my best when I’ve been with my duo of destruction from dawn ‘til dusk.
The Glamour!
I find nothing more glamorous than knowing that even though I’ve committed my life to someone else, there is a good chance that I’ll be handling most of life’s curveballs on my own. We attend extended family events – solo. If our partner is asked to cover a shift or change plans for work, they’ll say “yes” without a thought about what is planned at home, or who is watching the kids. We go to school functions – solo. We juggle our schedule to fit in our mate’s work-related social events, but we attend our own – solo. Is there anything more glamorous than RSVP’ing to social events with a “maybe” for the spouse, while the host thinks you’re just holding out for a better invitation? We handle the housework, the grocery shopping, the car maintenance, the bills, sick children, even natural disasters – solo. Exaggeration, you say? How about these true tales? My good friend ( also a dawkter’s wife) recently had a tree fall on her house on a Sunday afternoon. She was home alone with her children. Do I need to say where her husband was? Now her life is dominated by handling the insurance claims, adjusters, and repairs while her husband continues to work as normal. Not even the birth of a child can interrupt the dedication required in the medical profession. I should know. I got pregnant with our first child during the 2nd year of training. Lucky for me, a dawkter’s wife friend got pregnant at the same time. We attended our prenatal classes as a “couple” because our husbands were unavailable.
Glamour is watching non-medical friends move up the ladder in their careers (and salary) while your family continues to toil in training flat broke. I doubt driving around town trying to find the best “payday” loan so that your heat isn’t turned off was part of the “married to a doctor” fantasy we’ve all heard. It may be petty but an honest person will admit that it’s hard to watch people you always “beat” in school buy bigger houses, newer cars, and take vacations while you struggle to make ends meet. Many of us know the glamour of receiving hand-me-down underwear or buying our “new” from other people’s “old”. Being financially embarrassed in your 30’s while at least one of you has roughly $150K in education is truly part of the glamour of medicine.
The Romance!
Birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, all come 2nd to “the job”. Whether it’s due to low finances during (or after) training, or the insane hours our spouses work, most can barely muster a gift to acknowledge the event, much less an outing. And if there is an outing that has been planned, that doesn’t mean it won’t get interrupted! Our very own Angie tells the story of being dropped at the edge of town to walk home from her truncated birthday celebration. Since my own beloved started his medical life I’ve spent my 25th, 26th, 29th, and 31st birthday sans spouse, and I can’t remember the last birthday I received a gift. For those of us living the medical life, a “date night” often consists of a bottle of wine, a rented movie and one or both of the couple falling asleep before the movie ends. And as far as, umm, family planning goes – we’ve all heard tell (or participated in) of the call-room trysts that take place so as not to miss the conception window. Talk about romantic! While we didn’t go that route, we did find that General Surgery is not exactly compatible with starting a family. My husband switched to Pathology in July 2000, and in April 2001 our first child was born (you do the math).Apparently it helps for them to be home (or conscious) on occasion.
The life of a medical family is not what most people think or expect. There are great highs and great lows — as there are for all walks of life. For now, let’s take heart in knowing that we’ve found an online community where everyone knows how things really are … and perhaps we should make plans for our OWN movie. The trailer? “The Loneliness. The Sacrifice. The Truth.”
Jennifer Patel is a Stay at Home Mom of two boys, ages 3 and 4. She is recently transplanted to Kansas City where her dawkter husband has accepted his “dream job”.
