Available at 
Tweet
It's been a very long time since I have posted here. I have been lurking a bit over recent weeks. My husband took off 7 years after undergrad in biomedical engineering to work for a family business. Then he went to medical school in Valhalla, NY. In 1997, he started a general surgery residency at SUNY Buffalo. We had 3 children during those years, each 20 months apart. In 2001, after staying home with me and our 2 toddlers for over 10 weeks while I was on bedrest in my 3rd pregnancy, he decided that he did not want to return to the surgery lifestyle. He decided in May of that year to pursue a radiology residency. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find an open spot, post-match. We made cold calls to almost every program in the country. When he called PENN, they informed him of an opening in nuclear medicine. My husband flew down to interview that week and very quickly, we found a rental home and packed up our 3 babies and moved to Philadelphia for this fellowship. He completed the fellowship in 2003 and had a very, very difficult time finding a job as a full-time board certified nuclear medicine physician.
After going on several interviews across the country, it was clear that most places wanted someone with a radiology background, even if the job was solely in nucs. He was able to find a local part-time position with a diagnostic imaging place that consults for several hospitals around here. He has been doing that ever since. Over a year ago, he decided that the best thing to do was to apply from scratch for the radiology match. He did so last year and didn't receive a single interview. Because he is an older, more experienced candidate with lots of training under his belt, he is more expensive to train than newbie med school graduates, so that was a huge obstacle. Miraculously, with both of us working like crazy people on "unmatch" day to contact (fax, email, call) the places with unfilled match spots, he earned a spot at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI for this upcoming July.
Now, I am pregnant with our 4th child who is due in late April. We are going next month to buy our first house in a suburb of Detroit, hoping to move in by mid-late June, after our schools let out here. We made 2 trips there over the Summer to check out neighborhoods/schools, etc., so hopefully this houseshopping adventure will go relatively smoothly as we feel pretty well prepared. Financially, it will be quite tricky to swing it, but we are confident that we will be able to work it out. We have been looking at many varieties of mortgage options including physician ones, etc., as we have a ton of medical school debt still hanging over us.
I have a feeling that we will be like the grandparents of the residents there------as we are almost 20 years older than most of the other candidates, I guess. In many ways that should make it easier for us and we invision ourselves as resources for the younger residents/spouses who may be overwhelmed by the process. On the other hand, it will be hard for dh to go from being an attending (with fewer than full-time hours) back to being an R2-----emotionally and definitely financially.
It is still quite unsettling that it feels like this training process is never ending. Will he ever be a "big boy with a big boy job??" Ideally in 3-4 years, he will be double boarded in both nucs and rads and at that time, he will be able to find the job of his dreams. Of course, I had that same hope when he started surgery....that the end of training was in sight. And again, I had that false sense of hope when he started his nuclear medicine fellowship.........and here we go again............and I just don't know what to think anymore. I have to keep reminding myself that he has been making all of these changes (sacrifices) in his career path mainly so he can be an involved partner with me and active father to his children, while providing us with much greater financial stability for the future.
Oh well, I guess I just wanted to come back here and say, "Hi" and that I am so glad that this cyber-place exists.
After going on several interviews across the country, it was clear that most places wanted someone with a radiology background, even if the job was solely in nucs. He was able to find a local part-time position with a diagnostic imaging place that consults for several hospitals around here. He has been doing that ever since. Over a year ago, he decided that the best thing to do was to apply from scratch for the radiology match. He did so last year and didn't receive a single interview. Because he is an older, more experienced candidate with lots of training under his belt, he is more expensive to train than newbie med school graduates, so that was a huge obstacle. Miraculously, with both of us working like crazy people on "unmatch" day to contact (fax, email, call) the places with unfilled match spots, he earned a spot at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI for this upcoming July.
Now, I am pregnant with our 4th child who is due in late April. We are going next month to buy our first house in a suburb of Detroit, hoping to move in by mid-late June, after our schools let out here. We made 2 trips there over the Summer to check out neighborhoods/schools, etc., so hopefully this houseshopping adventure will go relatively smoothly as we feel pretty well prepared. Financially, it will be quite tricky to swing it, but we are confident that we will be able to work it out. We have been looking at many varieties of mortgage options including physician ones, etc., as we have a ton of medical school debt still hanging over us.
I have a feeling that we will be like the grandparents of the residents there------as we are almost 20 years older than most of the other candidates, I guess. In many ways that should make it easier for us and we invision ourselves as resources for the younger residents/spouses who may be overwhelmed by the process. On the other hand, it will be hard for dh to go from being an attending (with fewer than full-time hours) back to being an R2-----emotionally and definitely financially.
It is still quite unsettling that it feels like this training process is never ending. Will he ever be a "big boy with a big boy job??" Ideally in 3-4 years, he will be double boarded in both nucs and rads and at that time, he will be able to find the job of his dreams. Of course, I had that same hope when he started surgery....that the end of training was in sight. And again, I had that false sense of hope when he started his nuclear medicine fellowship.........and here we go again............and I just don't know what to think anymore. I have to keep reminding myself that he has been making all of these changes (sacrifices) in his career path mainly so he can be an involved partner with me and active father to his children, while providing us with much greater financial stability for the future.
Oh well, I guess I just wanted to come back here and say, "Hi" and that I am so glad that this cyber-place exists.
Comment