It's so nice to see this site again!

I just wanted to pop in and say hi. I visited this site years ago when DH was applying to med school and it was all craziness. Well now he's just begun his 4th year and is beginning the application process for ENT residency. I wanted to stop back in and say a BIG HELLO to everyone and see what people had to say about ENT in general, especially for the family lifestyle. We had our son 15 months ago and he's the center of my world these days (although I do work FT, albeit I telecommute 2-3x per week). DH has been pretty hard core with his surgery rotations, since that's what he wants to do and all... he's averaged 80 hours/week easily with senior surgery currently. Ouch! I totally feel like a single mom.

Anyway... he got his first interview invitation today, from Wayne State. Hoping for a good bunch more... he applied to 43 programs!!!

Anyone have any insight? I am not looking for anything specific right now, but I am sure I will in coming months, as we're facing an impending move and all.

Good to see this community is still up and running!!!!

-Amy

Hi Amy,

I visited this site awhile ago too when dh had a year left of med school.. Well now he is finally in the application process, going for family/practice and internal medicine.. He applied to 28 programs and has gotten 7 interviews so far.. I swear all we do all evening is check his email, eras, usmle.net, and studentdoctor.. I think I am more into it then him.

We are really excited cuz it is soon time to make the big move back to the US (we live in Copenhagen, Denmark..) We have two kids, three and 13 months so I am pretty busy and I feel like a single mom alot of days.

I'm excited to hear more about your application process!

Take care,
Kristen

[PrincessFiona]

Hey..welcome back guys! It's great to hear the updates!!

Kristen, you'll have to let me know if you are indeed coming my way. You guys are welcome to stay here for the night as well. Ummm...well, as long as you don't mind the mess.

kris

[twinsmom]

Welcome back and GOOD luck with the interview season! I felt like I should be awarded some honorary degree in airline/hotel booking after our season last year - it was CRAZY!!! But WELL worth every penny - DH got his DREAM spot for residency, so we were very happy with the outcome. (He applied to 93 programs - that STILL blows my mind!!).

As for ENT - dh really considered that for quite a while, so I did quite a bit of research to find out different aspects about it - a good site if you haven't found it already is http://www.scutwork.com that helps you get information on specialties and programs. They also have a link on that site for freida.com, which is a site that I liked even better for information.

ENT, from what I studied is one of the more family-friendly surgery specialties. They see a lot of interesting cases (especially if they delve a bit into the "plastics" with reconstruction, etc). The main bread and butter cases seem to be tonsillectomies, and things like that. The hours during residency can be brutal, but practicing physicians generally rate it as giving them some free time for other pursuits. Then again - that is all just from what I uncovered from the outside - we haven't been through it. My collage roomate's dad is an ENT - they have 6 kids in their family, and the good thing about it is that he has made enough money for a VERY comfortable living for them, plus he gets time to actually enjoy being with the family. (They just got back from a family trip to HAWAII!!).

My husbands best friend is in his 2nd year of ENT residency, and so far has enjoyed it okay. The first year he did a lot of scut work, but I think things have really gotten a lot better for him this year.

I was just thinking about how last year at this time I was scouring the emails every 20 minutes it seemed to get the latest word on invites/rejections - exciting, but also VERY STRESSFULL!! You will have to have a MAJOR celebration on match day (isn't that an early match??).

As for Wayne State... that's where dh just graduated from - we LOVED it there. He got phenominal clinical training and we are so glad that we went there. If your dh has any questions about the program (my hubby did rotations and research through the ENT dept), my hubby I'm sure would be happy to talk to him. If you do end up going there, we also have a fabulous house that we just left (that was one of the hardest things for me to leave!!) . Right now we are getting things ironed out to rent it to a couple of med students there (but it is more suited to a family).

As for the next few months - hold on and GOOD LUCK!! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

Jen B.

Hey Jen,
Thanks for all the info! Yes, ENT is early match, so I am hoping these months of uncertainty will be over in Jan!!! I am a BIG planner and it's driving me crazy that I can't start researching places to live, houses, a new job for me, possible daycare options, etc etc as we could be in like 30 different locations (of the 43 programs). Wow, your DH applied for 90+???? Holy cow. How many interviews did he get? I'm glad he ended up with his dream match. It gives me hope.

I know DH scours scutwork.com every night for reviews and such, but not sure if he visits the freida site you mention. I tried the url but it's a natural soap making site????? Typo perhaps? I've been sitting back and letting him do more of the actual program research, as ultimately he gets to make that decision (he moved out here to DC for me 8 years ago, so now it's his turn to be "steering" and I have to sit back.) Once we know where we're going (and god, please, I hope he matches!!!) it'll mostly fall on me to get the house logistics and everything else sorted out. So I'm on deck, but going batty! At least once he has his list of interviews I can start doing preliminary research. Meanwhile, juggling my own FT job and our toddler is enough on my plate.

Also, everything I've read about ENT and family life seems to say pretty much what you did... residency is super rough (especially the first year) but the "real world" post-training life is much easier schedule. Time will tell, I suppose. We've dealt with a pretty crazy school schedule already... DH was hard core about preparing for step 1 and I rarely if ever saw him while I was finishing my pregnancy, so part of me is like, can it get worse than that? And the other part of me is dreading it!

I could go on and on... but thanks for your note!

[twinsmom]

Andrea -
I stopped counting the interviews at 30 something - but not all of them were for Dermatology - he had to also interview SEPARATELY for internship year (I have NO idea how that rule ever got passed!!), as for straigh Derm, he ended up with 14 or 15. Life was completely insane for interview season. It sounds like your DH is in a great place to match with all of his dedication in studying. (As for Step I, I completely know how you feel! I literally saw my husband as he crawled into bed late at night and then left early the next morning... however, the kids made sure that he took notice of them - they came 2 months early and were born 3 days BEFORE his boards!!)

From what I can gather, first year of residency is pretty brutal no matter what the final specialty - as I am learning first hand this year. We are only three months into it, and I am ready to pull my hair out!!!

As for the Freida site, I couln't ever get the URL to work, I always had to go to scutwork, and then click on the "Freida" link (on the left hand side, towards the bottom of the first page). It has some pretty good information on different schools to compare all of the different aspects (salary, vacation, spots open, health insurance, etc etc). We made a big excell spread sheet so that we could see all of the aspects that were important to us and compare them at a glance. One thing dh did also was take a little notebook with him on each interview and sat down right after and jotted down little things that he liked/disliked about each program while it was fresh in his mind. That was invaluable because when it came time to make the official rank list, we could look at those comments and make some fine distinctions between some programs.

I feel for you going through it! I would not want to go back again - talk about STRESS!! Part of it is fun and exciting, though. We put a big map of the US on the wall and put pins in all of the places that he interviewed, and then had all of our friends/family cast a vote as to where they thought he would match. That was fun because it involved everyone, so they were excited to find out if they had "won" the poll. Just a little something to find fun in the stress of it all!

Let me know if you have any questions, concerns, etc and hang in there - He WILL match!!

Jen B.