Has anyone?

[Vanquisher]

Re: Has anyone?

I worry for him sometimes but he is one that will NEVER put anything in front of his family no matter how badly he wants it.

Just trying to be realistic here. This isn't even possible in medicine. There will always be something that has to be ahead of your family. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it is what it is.

There was the time I was languishing in bed with a 104 degree fever with my newborn daughter in a city where I knew no one, and my husband was on call. He could not put me first, no matter how much he wanted to.

There will be birthdays missed, anniversaries destroyed. There will be countless things that his family has to do without him. The spouse of a person in medicine has to be super strong and resilient. The doc-in-training has to be able to allow that and trust that in order to do their job, or they won't make it. I don't care what specialty you go into, medicine will trump family A LOT.

My husband is a great guy and a great husband and father, but there are more times than I can even count where he would have loved to be here to help me to nurture his family, where he couldn't. He is here when he can be, but there are no sick days, little vacation, very little time off, etc.

Maybe someone else can tell you otherwise, but I don't think you will find anyone who can realistically tell you that their family always came first as a doc.

Re: Has anyone?

Heidi makes some great points for you guys to consider as you make a plan for these next years of your life.

I'm sorry you guys have hit this rough spot. Feel free to come here and talk about it.

I don't know anyone in the same situation but have a friend who didn't pass one or two classes during med school. She repeated those classes and went on to complete a residency and fellowship. At the time, it was a huge blow for her but she did recover. Best wishes to you and congratulations on the pregnancy!

[planet]

Re: Has anyone?

Congratulations on the baby!

I have to agree with Heidi.

Family just comes second at times (sometimes at LOTS of times) in medicine.

I remember how tough it was for you when you were starting. I can see how he would try to be there to make it easier for you. You are a lucky woman to be loved so much. For that reason rethinking the career should be done by both of you. I'm not suggesting quitting medicine, just having good talks about how to get there. It gets even harder with kids. It gets harder again in residency. Family friendly is a very relative term. EM is very family friendly compared to surgery internship, and is more family friendly when you have a money cushion, and when you have family support (other than your dh I mean).

Do you have a solid support structure in place for when the baby comes? For the event you get PPD? These are real considerations. A year off may sound bad now, but might be good for regrouping to go back strong and able to prioritze success in school without you and the baby being sacrificed. Hard decisions to make.

[cylverdust]

Re: Has anyone?

Honestly as far as family first, that is how this happened because I was so sick, and he worried about me to the point of not studying and trying to always be there no matter what I said. I told him that his career has to come before family, period. It is sometimes a bit hard. We also had our first year of marriage during his first year of medical school. That was not easy. I know he will miss stuff even he does, I just mean when someone is struggling or such that he will not back off, he says he does not worry but he does which interferes with studying... Does that make sense...

Re: Has anyone?

I feel for you. When DH was a MS3 my pregnancy got really bad and I was on bedrest for 8 weeks, and was in the hospital for over 17 L&D visits, not to mention a week and a half of hospitalization not including delivery. If my MIL hadn't come up to help us out, DH would have failed this rotations, one of which was general surgery. Even as a medical student he couldn't put me first , since he was on clerkships. There were many times I was in the hospital, and so was he - a different hospital. And DS was taken care of by family. It was.. rough. Now, after our internship year is over, and we are not in town with family, I can't even imagine. Our first six months I did not do well with the transition, I took it much much harder than expected. I was depressed, lost weight, didn't go out much... totally not my personality at all, as I"m a pretty happy, do it yourself kinda gal. If we had any other hardships thrown our way, even just general illness I think it would have snapped me in half. And, of course unless DH quit, he can't/couldn't be "there" for me in flesh. There is no extra help in residency, unless you live by family. So... I would say, that if your family needs to be together to remain healthy and strong, this isn't the road for you. Check out PA, or NP - anything else. You have 7 more years of life's loveliness to be thrown your way, along with the medical stuff - hardly easy to say what will or will not happen. If you can't deal with most of it 80% alone, then this is not going to easy or even healthy for your family. That is just it in a nutshell, the family stuff, the housework, the parenting, 80% you overall - if that is to much, then tell him. It is almost more than what I can deal with, and I know I could not handle a long residency at all, and I was upfront with DH on this. What is good for you, doesn't make you a failure as a spouse, it's just truthful to the person he said, I do, to. It's easy to see others, and say I can do that they are happy. But you don't know if they are happy, what their stresses really are, and quite frankly everyone is made to endure things different, and want different things out of life. That hardly makes me a lesser spouse for saying absolutely no 5 yr residency and NO surgical residency. It just is me stating what I want TOO out of OUR life. We got married as a team.

So I would say, evaluate, is it worth eating $80K or more extra of debt, for a let's see. For me, it would not. But for you it may be the right choice. Also decide if the extra years of interest bearing on the debt will cause you not to be able to deferr loans in residency, you might have to many years of school to do that. Much to think about.

[Meenah]

Re: Has anyone?

Congratulations on the pregnancy. Everyone has given you great advice. If he decides to not take the year off I would suggest that he stick with counseling. Regular sessions with the right counselor will be a great support for him, and the school will know he is serious. Counseling can help him keep things in check.

[Vanquisher]

Re: Has anyone?

Cheryl, it absolutely makes sense, and it sounds like you have a wonderful hubby. Have him come here and read our responses. I am so sorry that this is happening to your family. It is a very difficult situation to go through, and you will need to decide what is best as a family.

I would sit down and see if he can answer yes to all of these questions before going back.

1. Am I willing to make things harder for my family to have a career as a physician?
2. Am I willing to miss important events?
3. Am I willing to spend the majority of my time in priority to further my career?
4. Does my family have enough support without my presence, emotionally and physically, to handle any situation on it's own?
5. Am I willing to move to any city in the country or out in order to complete a residency?
6. Am I willing to financially burden my family for at least a decade?
7. Am I willing to be less than the father I want to be in order to become the doctor I want to become?
8. If I am not able to match in my desired specialty, am I willing to do one that is much less desireable?
9. Am I able to knowingly and willingly put my wife and family second to my career on any number of occasions?
10. If you are having a very hard time again at some point, is he going to be able to handle it better or differently?

In residency, you live at the whim of the other residents and the attendings. It's just how it is. Being a doctor is a hard, hard, hard profession. There is no glory and prestige. This is not the profession for you if you want the money.

I know it seems like I am trying to talk you/him out of going on. It's not the case, really. I just want to try to fully prepare you as much as words on a screen can.

He can do this, and he can be successful, but his family can't always be first. It's just how it is. When he is putting his family in dead last place, he needs to remember that he is doing it in order to support you later. Good luck to you, and I hope you all make the best decisions you can. Oh, and I think counseling is a really good idea, but hopefully he will be able to go to someone who really understands medical training.

[DCJenn]

Re: Has anyone?

I have to say Heidi is dead-on in her assessment of medicine as a whole-

I also second her suggestion of having him come and read our responses. Have him surf the site in general to get a CLEAR look at what the medical spouses daily existence is all about.

Family first means different things to different families. When it was just the two of us and he couldn't attend an important function (I've stopped counting, but off the top of my head: our first anniversary he was on call, he missed my dad's surprise 60th anniversary, my grandmother's 90th, my great uncles 70th. He's missed the wedding of all of his neices/nephews except the one we went to 2 weeks ago. He didn't go to his own step-father's FUNERAL. [and this was the man who raised him!]. When we were adopting our son he left me in Russia for two weeks alone and I brought Nikolai home by myself. ) I went alone.

I had friends who called him Fig- as in figment of my imagination.

Now that we have a 4yo AND he's an attending he will try to make more events. I can guarantee though that if he's on-call (every four weeks he's on-call for two weeks at a time) that he'll still not be around.

I think they have to learn to compartmentalize because they need to learn HOW to get stuff done without letting 'life' intrude. Every time my husband has let go of the focus, there have been consequences. My mother told me that I enable his helplessness. She's right- I do. Because his #1 job is to do whatever he needs to do to cross the next step. In our most recent case, it was 7 months of fending for myself nearly every single weekend and most evenings as he studied for the boards. There's no negotiation, there are no options, it has to be done.

the question is not can he successfully complete medical school but can he leave home at home TO successfully complete medical school. Can he let go enough to ensure that he does what he needs to do because he's going to have to be a rock star.

Taking a year off while you have a newborn is probably the best thing he could do. He may be all gung-ho and revitalized NOW, but he needs to know that he's not going to be there for you. Period. He will need to be in class and then studying. and chances are home will not be conducive to studying, especially with a crying newborn. and YOU need to be able to take on the burden. You will need to devise some kind of support network that functions independently of your husband. If he's there, great- bonus. If he's not- oh well. and he needs to be OK with that.

If he's going to be a physician, then he needs to be OK with putting you and your children on the back burner. He's looking at 4 more years of medical school and then residency- at the minimum. That's seven years of missing school functions, doctor's appointments, illnesses, first steps, first words, etc. (My husband has missed EVERY single yearly check up for our son. and he works IN THE PEDS CLINIC.)

and lest we seem like horrible nasty nay-sayers, I do think you guys can do this. Use us, we're here for you.

Good luck- keep us posted.

Jenn

[weeniegeniewife]

Re: Has anyone?

Heidi is a wise, wise woman. Read her words carefully, and have your DH do the same. Medicine is not a glorious profession, by far....for either the physician or the spouse. Take everyone's words of wisdom and support to heart. Best of luck to you and your DH.

Jamie

[cylverdust]

Re: Has anyone?

I will get hubby to come on here to read the posts tonight. He seems to be doing good now, but you guys are right, a crying newborn is gonna be an issue. Especially given our little loved one will be his first child.

[peggyfromwastate]

Re: Has anyone?

Hang in there, and bless you for worrying about him and being willing to be real about the whole situation. I know that when a straw poll is taken here in this group about if the whole medical path was worth it, the answer is generally from ambiguous to hell no...

[cylverdust]

Re: Has anyone?

Well I have prayed about all this. God would not have put me with him if I did not have what is needed for hubby. I want what is is best for him, he wants to be a doctor so badly. I will support him through whatever decision he makes on this. He has wanted it for years, he has done everything he needed to do to get to med school, but with it being our first year of marriage I think he felt like he had to sacraifice for me. I do feel like he will do better, I know he can. I even feel like this will make him a better doctor. I am however, concerned about the newborn situation. We live close enough to family and have a church family who will help us out, I am more concerned with the facination he will have for the baby being his child. Hope I made some sense there.

[Meenah]

Re: Has anyone?

I would get Kris' book!!!!!

[Vishenka69]

Re: Has anyone?

Everyone has offered great advice. I didn't want to sound mean but if family got in the way during MS2, your DH really needs to reconsider if he's cut out for this life. It will only get worse from here on.

There were many, many times when I felt very resentful toward DH for putting his career first but now I realize that he would not be able to finish training any other way. It is much better now but his schedule will never be "normal" and neither will our life. Both of you need to accept it.

I can't speak for ER but Anesthesia has gotten extremely competitive in the past few years. Your DH will have to ace all his exams and be prepared to apply to very remote locations.

[rainbabies]

Re: Has anyone?

I worry for him sometimes but he is one that will NEVER put anything in front of his family no matter how badly he wants it.

Just trying to be realistic here. This isn't even possible in medicine. There will always be something that has to be ahead of your family. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it is what it is.

There was the time I was languishing in bed with a 104 degree fever with my newborn daughter in a city where I knew no one, and my husband was on call. He could not put me first, no matter how much he wanted to.

There will be birthdays missed, anniversaries destroyed. There will be countless things that his family has to do without him. The spouse of a person in medicine has to be super strong and resilient. The doc-in-training has to be able to allow that and trust that in order to do their job, or they won't make it. I don't care what specialty you go into, medicine will trump family A LOT.

My husband is a great guy and a great husband and father, but there are more times than I can even count where he would have loved to be here to help me to nurture his family, where he couldn't. He is here when he can be, but there are no sick days, little vacation, very little time off, etc.

Maybe someone else can tell you otherwise, but I don't think you will find anyone who can realistically tell you that their family always came first as a doc.

i have to whole heartly agree with heidi. it sucks, but is the truth. i have basically (finally??) learned that i cannot wait around for dh. that the kids and i will have to get along with out him, that i will have to live my life. dh has also had to learn that we will go on w/o him for many things. he has had many heart breaking comments thrown at him from the kids. they're young, but they "get it" already. they know daddy isn't coming home, that he is sleeping at the hospital again, that the beeper means the mommy's and babies need him. it sucks and we HATE it.
your dh's job is to go to school, learn, pass, and get on with it. his job is to study, study, study.
your job is to learn to live/do/be alone...to support him. to be a single parent, and to unfortunately get used to it.
i hope i don't come off as bitchy, because i don't mean to. it's just a long hard road...and the sooner you both can learn to work with what is thrown at you, the better off you will be. good luck with schooling, the decisions you will have to make and your pregnancy! how exciting!!