Your insight please?

[L.Jane]

sorry if I sounded condescending. I apologize if I offended anyone for my words.

[PrincessFiona]

Oh, L.Jane...don't apologize. I'm in a troll-like mood. Damn ... the guilt now. I just felt like the thread was turning into a comparison of who was a better wife or something. Clearly I need to go and drink some prozac water! I apologize.

Kris

[L.Jane]

Its ok. Im not even a wife. And if I was, I wouldn[t be in the top 100. Im too much of a selfish b#$#h.

[ladymoreta]

I agree with you, Kris - the [financial] rewards should be there for any doctor who goes through training. It would be ridiculous to expect anybody to spend that much money and that many years to make the same amount as someone straight out of undergrad. And yet... That's where I'm afraid we're heading. I'm not trying to turn this into a health care debate, so please let's not go there, but I find it very difficult to imagine the financial rewards at the end because I'm afraid if I get my hopes too high, I'll lose it when the system changes. So my take on it is that the author is setting herself up for a bitter disappointment, and I hope she is just dreaming and doesn't really expect all of those things.

[Michele]

When I was home this summer, I came to the sad realization that we will likely never be able to afford my "dream house". It's a good thing most of my priorities have changed as I've gotten older/matured/what have you. But damn, thinking about the 6000 sqft ocean front homes in Palm Beach sure got me through some rough times. I didn't read the blog, fwiw.

[Thirteen]

Kris, pass the prozac water, please!

When it's really bad, I look online at different locations/real estate websites. And decorate my home-- in fact, I subscribe to a couple of home improvement/design/DIY magazines. It's in my blood, as my mom is excellent on thinking outside of the design box and sniffing out great bargains. I grew up helping my parents remodel, demolish, paint, etc. It's what I know, and what I do in my head.

He looks at car brochures and dreams of the day he can buy one. And camping gear. He's a gearhead.

[v-girl]

I'm looking at used minivans right now. Dreaming....

[DCJenn]

Jeez- take five days off and look at the interesting threads.

Money- the number one contributing factor to divorce, nationally. It's about on the same level as religion and politics (two other subjects we all hold near and dear to our hearts.)

Our situation is so much different than most- more along the lines of Poky/Sandy that the bloggers questions are hard to even think about. We were both older when we married, he earned a pretty nice salary during medical school, we're going to have a fantastic retirement and we are living in our dream house. Right now at this exact moment- we're not exactly swimming in cash- but we're also paying mortgages on two houses so the fact that we're able to do that and still have spending money- even as a military attending and a social worker - tells you that money isn't that bad. Of course, I don't have to have a corporate wardrobe for work and I drive a Yaris (and soon will be riding my bike to work) and he wears uniforms and rides his bike or his motorcycle. Every single piece of furniture in my house with the exception of my bed and our $1500 PXtra living room that now smells like feet/wet dog we've been given by relatives. and I'm not kidding. But- I also bought my first car in 1989, my first house in 1999 and have twice as much in retirement plans as my spouse does. Should he decide to divorce me or (more likely) get run over by a Metro bus riding his bike to work, I'll be fine.

The contributing factors to the divorces we've seen in medicine are all 100% attributable to complete incompatibility. and 100% of them have been people married to non-medical partners.

Jenn

[HouseofWool]

'To me it was never about being a doctor's wife, it was about being E's wife.'

that statement bugs me, or maybe offends me? I can't quite explain why, but it does. I never went in to this whole 'super fun' journey so I could say that. We've been together since undergrad, which many here have too. I don't feel like I'm married to a doctor. I married a student, who worked full time in medical records, who busted his ass to get where we're finally at.

Sylvia, I think you may have misunderstood. What I was trying to say was that (prior to the separation) I was happy to be E's wife. I wanted to be his wife. I married him, not his job. It had ZERO to do with his career path. I met him when he was a college drop out working at Greenpeace. I encouraged him to go back to school so he could get out of a series of dead end jobs. The past tense in my statement is because, well, hopefully soon I will no longer BE E's wife. As for why our marriage failed? Shear incompatibility. I'd like to think it's because I am not a naricisstic whack job, but hey, what do I know.

[NYCHoosier]

Your insight please?

I'm actually a contributor to that blog, but we're a pretty loosely-knit group. I mostly just respond to posts and polls.
The move back to the Midwest has been interesting. I joked in one post a while back that doctors are so bourgeois, and I did mean it as a joke, but I feel there was truth in it for the society I was observing at the time. Doctors, lawyers, and accountants are respected but are still worker bees in a way. The real elite are people who invest wisely and in such amass wealth. It was nothing special to be married to a doctor in New York; it was respectable. My friends like DH because he's a good guy, and they wanted to be set up because good guys are hard to find in New York (the stats are not good for single ladies)...most of the single guys I knew weren't in medicine anyway.

It seems different in Ohio. There are a lot of great companies here, but the ambition appears to be focused more on work/life balance instead of just work/career. So the doctors are the outliers because the work part is heavier than the life part. The nicest house in an upscale urban neighborhood is owned by DH's program director, not some 4th generation captain of industry. I can imagine getting "you're a doctor's wife" assumptions here...once they realize orthopedic surgeons are not orthodontists.
I still have the NY mindset. I definitely have a lot of respect for DH and what he does, but all of my friends have impressive careers. I don't see medicine as being somehow above the others. Some pay a lot more (private equity), but some pay a lot less, too (television producer, actor). I think fascinating trumps a paycheck.

I have to agree with the sentiments about the salary stuff, though. My good friend was marketing director for a private college last year before she moved. Two of her best friends are dentists and were complaining to her about how you can't really live on a dental resident's salary, apparently unaware that her salary was less.

Student loans do make things tricky, but this is what the drs signed up for. Budgets should be considered in advance.

And Kris...this newest class of residents can't defer subsidized loans anymore. We're doing IBR, which I think will come to about $1000/month. Maybe that will help the transition.

Not sure what my point is...to respond to sentiments expressed above and perhaps to say that I don't really wonder about that stuff. Aside from the transitional making friends and missing old ones stuff, life is good now.

[Vanquisher]

Your insight please?

I agree with Kris 100%!


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[rainbabies]

Thanks for explaining, Kris. Sorry I misunderstood last night.

[HouseofWool]

Thanks for explaining, Kris. Sorry I misunderstood last night.

No problem.

[radwife]

Sorry this is a bit off tangent...

A few times throughout this thread it's been mentioned that if you're looking for a high paying speciality then pick Rads. It's bugged me. Just like how I don't think it's fair for people to assume that because you're a doctor it means your rich. Similarly I don't think it's fair to assume that just because you pick Rads it means you're one of the richest doctors.

Maybe there have been partial truths in that in the past, but this will not be true for new radiologists. There are specific cuts in the healthcare reform bill targeting imaging. It's created fear in a few of the local radiology practices and there have been layoffs and older partners are not retiring. DH knows of several graduating radiology residents last year who couldn't find jobs. DH is now talking about doing 2 fellowships instead of 1 post residency so that he'll be able to market himself. Actually finding a job post training is a real concern in our house.

[peggyfromwastate]

I don't even know what this thread is about anymore, but it's pretty interesting! LOL

We will never be feeling wealthy. Ever. We have 5 kids, and we choose to give them experiences (swimming, soccer, modest vacations) which we really can't pay for fully, but we can pay off mostly. My goal is to pay off all CC debt by the time DH is done with fellowship. In time to start paying for DDs college. We will always be feeling on the brink, therefore. And that's without any educational debt, just life.

I used to figure that we'd be able to sock away a lot of money by this point- military residents get paid relatively well- but that was back when I thought that once the kids were out of diapers they got much less expensive. Take heed. new parents.

DH and I feel lucky though that we will have the military pension if that doesn't go away due to the crumbling economy, and frankly I think a lot of other things will go away before the military pensions, so we feel pretty secure there. It's not realistic for us to save towards retirement. Save what? Seriously.

DH won't be making crazy money when he's done with residency and fellowship bc he'll be in the military system. He'll make about 40% more than he does now, but with taxes and what not, I don't think I'll ever be to the point where I don't care how much it costs for dinner out. I'll probably never be able to order a $10 margarita, either. Military attending lifestyle is nice, though, except for those pesky deployments. We are hoping DH will be able to moonlight to help pay for the twins' college educations.

We have chosen to put way more money into our kids than we could've. We have chosen to fly home at huge expense 2 times or more a year to stay connected to relatives. We have chosen to buy a new car because payments on it were more affordable than the unending bills for repairs on our old one. We have chosen to live in our little house instead of *trading up* in a bad market. Try as we might to be frugal, we have debts to pay off and life is expensive.

Ultimately, we aren't planning on being wealthy, or living extravagantly, ever. That's not our goal. So I think for us it will work out. But I doubt I'll ever look back and say that I am glad DH is a doctor. Honestly, I was over medicine before he even started medical school. I have *issues* from a childhood with a workaholic absent Dr dad...