Moving vs Staying close to home

[Vanquisher]

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

I'm going to go against the grain here.

I think choosing residency as the time to move away from family and find your own identities apart from them is possibly a huge mistake that you can't take back.

Residency has beaten me to a pulp, chewed me up, and tossed my out with the trash, and that was all in one week! There are days when all I want in the whole world is my mom to come and watch my kids, cook dinner, and take care of me, and I can't have it. Not ever. It sucks.

I would think long and hard about the relationship you have with your family, how much they help out, and then decide if you want to yank that away at the hardest time. Now, if your family only causes stress, and doesn't help, by all means, move.

Depending on where you are, perhaps there is a comprimise point. As Fluff would say, the SHODDY factor (several hours of driving distance, YES!) might be just what you are looking for. In our case we are several hours of plane flights and days of driving distance, but if I could pack my kids in a car and drive for 8 hours and be at my mom's house, what a difference that would have made for me.

In medical school, being away was hard, but good too. In residency, being away has just been evil. There have been times that I have been sick with sick kids and a husband on call. That is really, really hell.

Anyway, good luck in your decision, not that you have much control in it.

[Auspicious]

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

For me, I'm glad that I had a time in my life where I lived in a different region of the country from my family and became independent of them. That was a very important experience to me.

But I'm very glad that we are living near them when we're starting to have kids.

I agree it depends on the family dynamics--in our case even my husband says my family has "a good understanding of boundaries."

[Liz2254]

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

For me, I'm glad that I had a time in my life where I lived in a different region of the country from my family and became independent of them. That was a very important experience to me.

ITA

I'm not sure what I'm hoping for post-training though... SHODDY sounds about right.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

Definitely figure out where you want to live and then go from there, that way regardless of the program you get, you'll be ok with the location. As I mentioned earlier, the way we controlled for uncertainty is to rank NY (and suburbs) programs for majority of the list. I really wasn't ready to leave my comfort zone and the only alternative DH was excited about was Pittsburg.

Even though we didn't have kids in residency, living in the same town as all our friends was priceless. I always had a date when DH was on call and we even lucked out by living in the same building as our friends (both times). Luckily NY is big enough that we were always about an hour (or more in traffic) from our families. Now we're 1.5-2 hours away and that feels far enough (although sometimes I really want to ship MIL to Antarctica).

My only warning is that moving after only a year is stressful and the farther the move the more stressful it is.

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

Well you are asking for experiances so here is mine. For medical school we stayed in our home town. We had one child before med school, and one during - and having a really stressful pregnancy w/8 weeks on bedrest, and a husband on surgery for part of it - well family made it possible to survive. Family was a big help, there were times I was dead sick, and I could have someone help me out with the kids. Fast forward to now - we matched in an area we had really hoped to go. I researched the area like mad, we found a great home we couldn't have had in our hometown - and I'm homesick like crazy. My parents were just in town, and I had to bite my cheeks litterally to keep from crying in front of them. DH has been so busy, I have no real friends yet, that each month that he is crazy busy I feel like is an endless amount of time for me. All the happy feelings and optmistic feelings I had before we moved are now kinda gone. Sure it's a lovely place, the weather (when not in record breaking levels) is much better than home, I have a house I could not have had at home, there are fun places to go - but all these things have fallen to the ground now. The honeymoon is over and the reality is I have to parent alone often, I have no one to help me if I'm dead sick, and I'm homesick like mad. I don't regret being here, but I'm just not so sure I want to be here after residency, and in the mean time, I'm trying to keep the crying down, try to buckle down and just live - but it's hard.

So for me, I guess I would say the experiance is not all roses and we got what we wanted. If we would have stayed, we probably wouldn't have gotten a house (and we so need the space w/ 2 kids) , the program was an extra year, the COL was higher overall, and DH would have had more on call rotations. So be careful - match where you want or you don't match where you want, something will not be fulfilled- there is no utopia, just make the best of it and take it in stride.

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

Since the place where you are now is eventually where you want to settle down, be sure to consider what the job market will be like there once training is done. If it is a tight job market, it might be more difficult to land a job if you are an out-of-state applicant.

We thought about moving away for residency, but ended up staying put because DH's #1 pick was there. It worked out for the best because I rarely saw DH during residency, but at least I still had family and friends to lean on.

We did move away for the post-training job, though, and haven't looked back. DH and I are pretty independent people so we've enjoyed having some distance from our families.....although mine is gradually migrating this way.

[houseelf]

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

This question has made me think hard!

It's only been four months, but when I look back on the past seven years of residency far from family help, I honestly can't believe how we managed certain challenges. Stress was a daily part of our lives, to the point where we couldn't even recognize how pervasive the stress had become until we moved away.

In truth, however, not having family was both a blessing and an enormous handicap. We were young and in loooove. We had some, no A LOT, of things to work out. The distance allowed us to figure things out without a familial court of appeals. For this reason, I could not agree more with the observations that sometimes it is good to NOT have to deal with family. On the other hand, parenting is far more demanding than I anticipated. Now, I have family help with house projects that my honey doesn't have time to do, loving individuals who watch my kids while I get a break or do some non-kid chore. Finally my kids have several people involved in their life who are deeply emotionally invested in them. I feel like the luckiest mom in the world because I absolutely know a different life devoid of the benefit of extended family.

Now we are beginning to contemplate a post-training move. I'm honestly more open to far-flung possiblities than you might expect. I know that we can do it. What is most important to me, however, is the ultimate job schedule and pay. I can't do hardcore anymore. I want my husband to be an active, well-balanced, happy participant in our family life. Geography is a second concern to the job.

I share all of this with you because I actually think that having a program that you can deal with is more important than geography. (Did I actually just say this? Someone grab my pills!) Heinous call schedules will take a greater toll than being on your own. You will rise to the occasion and find out how resourceful you can be if you go far from home.

I wish you the best of luck.

Kelly

[Phoebe]

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

I personally like a happy medium. I tend to like at least a 60 mile radius rule. Since we have been married we have been at least 4 hours from family. It hurts at times and for years I have pined away to be closer to my beginnings. Now I feel settled and happy to be where we are. We are free of enmeshment that would happen if we lived locally with family. Our relationship and family life has improved being on our own. However, I do miss having help and support from loved ones. We happen to live in an area with many transcients. We have developed our own "family network" when we can't be close during holidays.

This is my take, but I have no real advice.

[planet]

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

I actually think that having a program that you can deal with is more important than geography.

Having lived in the same place for two different residency types I would wholeheartedly endorse this. A good program made the biggest difference in my quality of life.

[alison]

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

My parents and I have a better relationship with us so far away. When we visit them, 3 days is really enough. I get the feeling that they want to go back to their normal routine, and I prefer to have mine as well. They get tired of entertaining us. Even the dog gets tired of the constant attention and conks out by early evening.

We wouldn't live in the same house of course, but I don't think I'd be able to take the constant contact.

I love that dh and I have our Chicago years. It doesn't matter where we end up, but we'll always have this time in our lives where we carved out our own existence, made tons of mistakes, and learned from them.

I never thought we'd do daytrips to Michigan and Wisconsin. Years ago, the Midwest was always part of the country that I didn't care to see. It could have fallen in a huge crevasse and I wouldn't have noticed. I've grown to love it. Did I just say that?!

Re: Moving vs Staying close to home

I share all of this with you because I actually think that having a program that you can deal with is more important than geography. (Did I actually just say this? Someone grab my pills!) Heinous call schedules will take a greater toll than being on your own. You will rise to the occasion and find out how resourceful you can be if you go far from home

Ditto to Kelly: That's really why we ranked home lower, as I shared above. DH would have been gone more, we would not have bought a home (and I'm totally loving having the space, and a play room!!! DS and I have a LOT less fights because of this - it really helps us keep saine), and it would have been a whole extra year of loans encrewing interest and a whole year longer before he was done. Money would have been tighter for us as well. But I am so missing the family get togethers that I know I"m missing on. My grandpa is 92 and has prostate cancer, which he finally decided to stop treating - and will probably die in the next year. That is really hard for me as growing up my grandparents where my seragate parents. I just want to make it these 3 years (2 years and 8 months now ) and hope we make the right choice for our family.

But don't forget the main point here - the match doesn't have good manners and don't get to wrapped up in things being perfect, just go for what you can handle and oust the things you can't deal with.