Doctor as a second profession?

[houseelf]

When I got back from vacation I was reading through all the posts. Wendy's post to Robin about Dave's speciality of anestio...anestiasia...(OH, foo, I can't spell it) struck a chord. She mentioned that Dave was a respiratory therapist for awhile before medical school. Was it hard for him to take on a new career, especially one that is so grueling? I ask this because I feel like my dh is "institutionalized", much like the prisoner who has been in the criminal justice system for so long that he no longer know how to live on the outside. In our case, the sentence is as follows: bachelors, masters, M.D., residency, Ph.D, fellowship....Give me a break!!!

As an aside, I find that there are MANY parallels between inmates and residents: blue scrubs vs. orange scrubs, conjugal visits, probation officers vs. program directors...

totally kidding...well, sort of kidding...o.k., alright, I'm a tad bitter.



Anyway, this must be hard on you guys to switch gears from a relatively normal life to medicine. The topic of discussion on this board is life as a medical spouse. Ironically, a medical spouse is the only type of spouse that I have been. Is it REALLY that much different? Just curious about your thoughts on this one.



Kelly
Edited by: kmbsjbcgb at: 12/12/01 10:06:35 am

[DCJenn]

Kelly-



Very interesting thread!



First, Rick always knew he wanted to be a doctor but he had to be a lot of other things in between to get there. (all of which he liked by the way!) He enlisted to pay for his undergrad degree and LOVED being Airborne Infantry. (I tease him about being trained to shoot and to repair!) He then went to the local community college, then finished at a state school and then worked in a lab at the school while applying to med school. So- he had a lot of other options along the way but this is what he was determined to do.



I do think that working 'outside' of the medical field has given him a different perspective than some of his younger co-workers who have no life experience other than the straight through to doc path. Also, an interesting thing I have noticed is that the docs with outside experience seem much more satisfied with the residency and the lifestyle than those who have gone straight through. And not to alarm you guys but the people whose relationahips have floundered or ended were those who married in college or right after and have endured nothing but the quest for medicine. Don't know quite how to interpret that but it does raise some (more) interesting questions.



As for the spouse question- I have only been a medical spouse to Rick but I was a 'regular' spouse to a Fire Fighter. (and yes, I do have a thing for uniforms!) To be honest, there isn't that much difference between the two in terms of the lifestyle. My ex worked 24 hours on and then had a few days off in between for a number of years. He also put in a lot of hours as the union rep so he was gone a lot. I think there's more spousal support in the Fire Fighting field- we all knew they were risking their lives and that creates a bond- and there is truly a 'brotherhood' among them. There is certainly NOT anything that supportive that I have seen in the medical field.



I think that there is still the perception of the medical field being somehow different that carries over to the spouses. I think it is partially that people still think doctors make a boatload of money and also the amount of education that is required really freaks some people out. I don't think people are as willing to cut docs and families slack because of these lingering perceptions. It's the old you don't have anything to complain about because you're married to a doctor thing.



Just my thoughts-



Jenn

Ummm... yes, it's hard to go from normal life to medical spouse life. It is something that I struggle with on a fiarly regular basis. Probably what was more difficult, though was being a pre-medical spouse, because at that point all of our friends had normal lives. We were the ones that had to miss out on things because Dave had a test to study for or we didn't have the money because Dave only worked 1 day per week. At least now we have freinds that are in the same boat we are- no one has money!



The positive to all this is that we have gotten a much greater sense of need vs. want. When we had 2 incomes we spent a lot of it on going out to eat and the more expensive versions of everything. We certainly don't have much to show for all the going out to eat (except the 60 lbs that Dave has gained since we got married!). We do have some nice furniture that we bought, but it's gotten a little dinged up in the moves. We are now a great deal smarter about how we spend our money. We've learned to discipline ourselves and really evaluate if it is something that's really a good way to spend our money or just something that sounds kind of cool right now. I think that in the long run this will really be to our benfit, because we'll be much less inclined to go crazy when he is through with all this and making money.



I think the other thing is that Dave inspires me to go for dreams I might not otherwise have gone for. The thing that got me through registering for art classes was telling myself that if he can start medical schol at 33, surely I can take a couple of little art classes at 29. Because of that, I've found something I love. It would've been a lot more secure to have stayed with the 2 incomes, normal life route, but I don't think it would've been anywhere near as fulfilling.





Wendy