Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions about Ophtho

[MDPhDWife]

As many of you know our oldest DD (7) is from my previous marriage. Just a brief recap of our situation: We've been divorced since she was 5 months old, when she was 15 months old both her dad and I met our current spouses and remarried when she was around 2. The relationship has been extremely rocky, but recently has made a complete 180 and the four of us have become great friends to the point that even our younger children from our current marriages spent the night at each others home on a regular basis. His wife and I often spend hours talking on the phone, but this is all VERY new and completely opposite of our past. So what's the problem? Well.....

DH has chosen a specialty that has zero residency options within our state so we would be required to move. According to my divorce decree neither of can move out of the county we currently live in, so obviously we would need to try to get that changed. I need to get the ball rolling on that now (considering the specialty choice is early match) since it can often take 6 months or longer to get a court hearing if it comes to that which I imagine it will. So the first step is to arrange to have dinner with them so we can drop the bomb about the move. Before I do that, I want to consult an attorney to get some insight on the timeline and legal options we have. Although we've been in court several times per year for various reasons, I've always managed to represent myself and have come out well in the end. So my questions are:

1) What's the best way to find a good family law attorney? I plan on getting a few consultations, but how do I determine if the attorney is a good one?

2) The specialty DH is planning on pursuing requires an transitional year, so in theory we could do an IM intern year here and wouldn't necessarily move until 2011. The good news is DH's school is known for preferring to keep it's own students so I'm pretty confident that we could stay here if we wanted to. Does anyone know if there are Ophtho residencies that have the intern year built in? If not, then does he apply to both IM and Ophtho, how does that work since one is an early match and one isn't? My goal is to only have to move once.

3) Does anyone know what a typical timesharing schedule is for divorced parents who live in different states? I'm assuming that she'd spend the school year with us and the summers with her dad. What about breaks though? Is it typical to alternate or split those or does the non custodial parent get those? Are travel expenses usually shared or does the parent who moves absorb those? I don't have any friends or family who have experience with this, so I'm hoping someone here does.

BTW, DH and I decided long ago that if we weren't able to come to a compromise with her dad and the court ruled against her moving with us, that he would pick another specialty that is offered here. Of course I'm not going to present my case that way, so that's why it's crucial to get the decision made before it's time to apply and why time is of the essence. So my last question is what timeframe are we looking at to get our applications in? I was thinking August/September of this year, is that accurate?

If you've gotten this far in this post, THANK YOU for hearing me out and I'm grateful for any and all advice you guys give. The end of medical school has always been a bittersweet thing for me because although I'm excited for the next step in the training process, I've dreaded the heartbreak it's going to cause our family, especially DD.

[KCwife]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

I don't have any advice, just wanted to offer you a huge hug. It sounds like you truly have your daughters best interest at heart, and being a child of a nasty divorce/custody battle, I just felt like saying that.

Do you think because the situation is better between you and your ex that he might not contest the move?

[madeintaiwan]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

Charlene,
I don't have any legal advice but wanted to let you know that my understanding is that they're not built in per se but if the programs you are ranking have prelim spots, you can do your rank lists to match up. Our friend matched into optho in 07 and he seemed to give us the impression that if you match into their optho program and the hospital has a prelim year, you would be ranked to match for one of their preliminary year spots. Since you find out where you match for optho prior to making your rank list for your prelim spot it seems you would have a pretty decent shot. Our friend's program was a little annoyed with him because he did not rank the prelim year at the hospital of his optho program. They chose to go home for a year to be near family. With interviewing for both prelim and optho spots he was pretty darn burned out [and broke]. Good luck with everything. I hope everything goes smoothly and in your favor.

[MDPhDWife]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

I don't have any advice, just wanted to offer you a huge hug. It sounds like you truly have your daughters best interest at heart, and being a child of a nasty divorce/custody battle, I just felt like saying that.

Do you think because the situation is better between you and your ex that he might not contest the move?

Thank you, I appreciate that. It's good to hear because I feel terrible about having no choice but to "rock the boat" just when the 4 parents are finally beginning to have a wonderful working relationship. I truly do have her best interests at heart and that is why DH and I pondered for a very long time about even pursuing a specialty that wasn't offered here. The deciding factor was that even if he went with his second choice which was a distant second, although we'd be likely to match here there would be no guarantee so there would be the possibility of a move anyway. My prediction is that DD's dad will suggest she live with him for the school year and with us during the summers/school vacations. I know that is something our family couldn't live with. DD2 would miss her sister too much and I would be absolutely miserable. Not to mention he's been out of work since October 2007 and his wife lost her job about 4 months ago, so they're on skid row financially. They're heavily considering bankruptcy, he's way behind on child support, and they have 2 other children together. I would be pleasantly shocked if he agrees so I'm prepared for the worst. Then again, with as bad as the relationship had gotten not more than 6 months ago, I would've never in a million years imagined we'd be the friends we are today eating dinner together on a regular basis.

[MDPhDWife]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

Charlene,
I don't have any legal advice but wanted to let you know that my understanding is that they're not built in per se but if the programs you are ranking have prelim spots, you can do your rank lists to match up. Our friend matched into optho in 07 and he seemed to give us the impression that if you match into their optho program and the hospital has a prelim year, you would be ranked to match for one of their preliminary year spots. Since you find out where you match for optho prior to making your rank list for your prelim spot it seems you would have a pretty decent shot. Our friend's program was a little annoyed with him because he did not rank the prelim year at the hospital of his optho program. They chose to go home for a year to be near family. With interviewing for both prelim and optho spots he was pretty darn burned out [and broke]. Good luck with everything. I hope everything goes smoothly and in your favor.

So if a program offers a prelim year, does that mean we apply/interview seperately for that? And by prelim year, could it be any of the three options, transitional year, IM, or gen surg? So in other words if we matched in January with program X and it offers IM, gen surg, and transitional year, we could apply to all three in the hopes of matching to one in the March? Wouldn't it be too late come January to apply/interview for those spots?

Damn, this early match thing is confusing as all get out! To think I'm going to have to try and explain this to DD's dad, attorneys, and possibly the courts? :thud: I'm already imagining them laughing me out of court because I'm requesting to move to a location that is yet to be determined by something beyond my control.

[JaneDoe]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

I'm not much help with your family law questions, but I can offer a little help on your ophtho/im questions. Generally in ophtho, you match at your ophtho program first and then go through the priliminary IM match. If I remember correctly, you don't have to rank your IM programs until after you match in ophtho. (Am I remembering this correctly? It's been 7 years now! ) I don't think there are programs that have a built-in IM year (meaning if you match at ophtho program A you are automatically matched into program A's prelim year) but I could be wrong on that. I think the preliminary IM programs are pretty easy to match into, though. I would not be terribly worried about matching at your IM program of choice. Your biggist hurdle will be where you match for ophtho.

When Dh went through the ophtho match, we really hoped to match at Casey Eye. With that hope in mind, he was planning on ranking the preliminary IM programs in Portland first. When he didn't match at Casey and matched at Penn State (where he went to medical school), he chose to rank Penn State's preliminary IM program first so we didn't have to move. They told him prior to the match not to worry, that he will get in. They were right.

Hope this helps.

[madeintaiwan]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

Charlene,
I don't have any legal advice but wanted to let you know that my understanding is that they're not built in per se but if the programs you are ranking have prelim spots, you can do your rank lists to match up. Our friend matched into optho in 07 and he seemed to give us the impression that if you match into their optho program and the hospital has a prelim year, you would be ranked to match for one of their preliminary year spots. Since you find out where you match for optho prior to making your rank list for your prelim spot it seems you would have a pretty decent shot. Our friend's program was a little annoyed with him because he did not rank the prelim year at the hospital of his optho program. They chose to go home for a year to be near family. With interviewing for both prelim and optho spots he was pretty darn burned out [and broke]. Good luck with everything. I hope everything goes smoothly and in your favor.

So if a program offers a prelim year, does that mean we apply/interview seperately for that? And by prelim year, could it be any of the three options, transitional year, IM, or gen surg? So in other words if we matched in January with program X and it offers IM, gen surg, and transitional year, we could apply to all three in the hopes of matching to one in the March? Wouldn't it be too late come January to apply/interview for those spots?

Damn, this early match thing is confusing as all get out! To think I'm going to have to try and explain this to DD's dad, attorneys, and possibly the courts? :thud: I'm already imagining them laughing me out of court because I'm requesting to move to a location that is yet to be determined by something beyond my control.

You would apply to optho through SF match and for "prelim" through NRMP. Making sure to meet both match systems separate deadlines and requirements. It didn't seem like there was a preference. I am pretty sure that some optho program will list out what services they expect you to have completed during your intern year. I think altho it sucks general surg would be the most beneficial since optho is a surgical specialty, our friend did IM and he was STOMPED when he actually started optho since his intern year was so cush. Essentially you will be interviewing for both during the same period. That is why our friend was so exhausted and broke. It was double the interviews and fees. It was such a pain. They were so glad when it was over. First in January and then finally relieved in March when they found out where they were matched for their "prelim" spot. You match in optho before the NRMP rank list deadline. I will be sending good vibes out there for you.

[Michele]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

No legal advice....

Russ is in ophtho...he applied for the ophtho spots (PGY2) and prelim spots (PGY1) separately....UF was good about taking their own for prelim if his ophtho program wasn't going to have a spot....I do believe he knew where he matched before the rank list was due....the ophtho match was yesterday....so are regular matchers still ranking programs??

We ran into a small snag in that he was denied a transitional intern year here in Shreveport w/o an interview. That sucked when we found out he matched here for ophtho. We knew UF would probably keep us, but with my job and with housing, we'd rather move for all 4 years than just the last 3. He called the PD at the ophtho and they put a call into IM. Turned out that IM was blanketly denying most applicants b/c they were on standby for transfers or something b/c of Katrina. They were trying to make sure that everyone who was a Louisiana resident who wanted to stay would be able to. The ophtho PD told them Russ needed a spot and they made it happen. So we knew before the regular match....which made house hunting much easier.

I think a gen surg prelim would be overkill for ophtho....but it's probably variable by program. Here in Shreveport gen surg would have been unnecessary. The ophtho program is rather laid back....it's clinical-based and definitely does not have a focus in research. During his IM transitional year, Russ had 2 months of electives that he used for ophtho....and that gave him the prep he needed. Yeah the first ophtho year was harder at times than intern year, but overall I think it was probably worsened by my expectation that ophtho would be "easy." This year (2nd ophtho year) has been great. And I think next is supposed to be same or better.

I'm sure he'd be more than happy to answer any questions about ophtho and the match and prelim stuff....just PM him....his name on here is Monkey7247.

[Bittersweet]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

The most preeminent and well-respected family law attorneys in my state are fellows with the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Of course, I’m not sure if the organization is as well regarded in every state, but it may be a good starting place. Their website (http://www.aaml.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1) has a locate attorney feature.

Also, Martindale-Hubbell conducts peer review ratings of attorneys. Many attorneys will advertise on their profile page of their firm’s website if they have received an AV rating. This rating represents that fellow attorneys rated the individual as having exceptional skill and ethics and is reserved for those who have practiced for at least 10 years (I think). However, I’m not sure how often this rating is conferred or what its true value is in practice. It may be something to look for or maybe not. Someone with more experience would probably have a better understanding.

In my opinion, family law is not an area of the law that should be dabbled in. If it were me, I’d choose someone who almost exclusively practices family law rather than listing it as one of many areas of practice. Just my :02:

Hope that helps a tiny bit!!

[MDPhDWife]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

[quote="Bittersweet"] In my opinion, family law is not an area of the law that should be dabbled in. If it were me, I’d choose someone who almost exclusively practices family law rather than listing it as one of many areas of practice. Just my :02: quote]

This was my train of thought as well.

Thanks for the link, I found a decent amount of listings that gave far more information than what is found in the phone book and most websites.

[JaneDoe]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

No legal advice....



I think a gen surg prelim would be overkill for ophtho....but it's probably variable by program. Here in Shreveport gen surg would have been unnecessary.

Totally agree with this. I think the first year of ophtho (PGY 2) will be a major transition whether your Dh does a prelim year or a gen surg. year. Ophtho is just different, so it takes some adjustment. I really don't think gen. surg provides better preparation for ophtho. For what it's worth, everyone at Dh's ophtho residency program did an IM prelim year.

[GrayMatterWife]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

In my opinion, family law is not an area of the law that should be dabbled in. If it were me, I’d choose someone who almost exclusively practices family law rather than listing it as one of many areas of practice. Just my :02:

Very sound advice, I think. You should get someone who practice family law almost exclusively. It may be a varied family law practice (may be divorces, annulments, adoptions, parental rights terminations, etc., etc.) but should be family law familiar. There is no such thing as someone who "occasionally" practices family law and does it well.

Honest-to-goodness, the best way to obtain a good attorney?...it's just like hiring a contractor...by word-of-mouth recommendations. People who have been happy and feel well-cared-for and treated fairly. Get several recommendations, if possible, and then go with the attorney with whom you feel "most comfortable."

[MDPhDWife]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions

No legal advice....



I think a gen surg prelim would be overkill for ophtho....but it's probably variable by program. Here in Shreveport gen surg would have been unnecessary.

Totally agree with this. I think the first year of ophtho (PGY 2) will be a major transition whether your Dh does a prelim year or a gen surg. year. Ophtho is just different, so it takes some adjustment. I really don't think gen. surg provides better preparation for ophtho. For what it's worth, everyone at Dh's ophtho residency program did an IM prelim year.

I read on the AAO website that peds was also an option for PGY1. Does anyone know anybody that has done this? I know this would appeal greatly to DH as peds was his second choice anyway. Thoughts? :anyolne:

[Michele]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions about Ophtho

I don't know anyone who has done this, but I bet if he was considering peds-ophtho for fellowship than it probably would be a god idea. I can ask Russ when he gets home.

[Meenah]

Re: Legal Advice Needed and lots of questions about Ophtho

Does he pay child support? If so, maybe letting him not pay while you are out of state will help convince him!