Happily Married, With Medicine

Southern California Ortho!

2011-03-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

We are staying local for our residency! Match was full of adrenaline, and I have some great memories of friends jumping, screaming, crying when they opened their letters. It was a good time and it feels so good to be moving on to the next step in this medical life journey!

"St. Matchrick's Day"

2011-03-16T15:29:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow!!!

So, so, so happy it's finally here. My wife friends and I went and got wonderful pedicures this morning after picking up Starbucks. It was so nice to just TRY and relax a little bit before really thinking about what is happening tomorrow. I'm so proud of my husband. There are so many emotions running through me (elevated since I'm preggo) that I know I'm going to at least tear up tomorrow no matter what happens. I'm comforted knowing that we matched into orthopedic surgery, and no matter the location, Mark will be doing what he loves.

5 years of our life is a big deal now that we have children. Our kids will go from toddlers and just being born, (I'm due with the 3rd in June) to upper elementary age! They will do a lot of changing and growing in those 5 years. Tomorrow is a very big day.

My in-laws are here to witness the match ceremony. After we open the envelope I have a bunch of phone calls and text messages to send! 17 hours to go...

Match in 6 days

2011-03-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

It has been about a year since my last entry and boy has a lot happened! Over the summer Mark went on two away rotations that were both 4 weeks long. I was able to stay with my parents while he was away. During his first rotation we were able to see him a couple times a week. Our friends let us stay with them as we needed. (They live 40 minutes from where Mark was rotating) The second rotation was much farther away and we were unable to see Daddy. It was a long and difficult summer, but worth it. Orthopedics is definitely Mark's passion.
September was difficult as far as making sure our applications to residency were complete and sent off properly. With Mark so busy at his away rotations it was hard for him to do this on his own so I helped quite a bit. If you are planning on doing away rotations right before/during September 1st of application year make sure you've planned ahead and have mostly finished the ERAS application and letters of recommendation. Also, there are quite a few orthopedic programs that require supplemental forms to be filled out by your letter of recommendation writers. Research this carefully and make sure your LOR writers get these forms in time! Once applications were complete and sent we waited. I followed the forums on orthogate to see when people around the country received offers of interviews. This helped me to know that either we hadn't heard anything from a program but many other people had OR that I didn't need to freak out yet about not hearing from a program because nobody else had either!

It wasn't until October 20th that we received our first offer to interview at a program. About 6 days before that we discovered we were pregnant with our 3rd baby! It was a pretty exciting week. For the next few months I was constantly checking the computer for interview offers and notifying Mark immediately when they came so we could schedule them. In orthopedics, if you don't respond to offers very quickly you may not get the date that works best for you to interview. You might even lose your interview spot altogether! It was busy, and stressful. On top of that flights, hotels, and rental cars had to be reserved. All the while, you still have responsibilities to finish your classes of 4th year!

It wasn't until the first week of February that our last interview was finished. Creating a rank list was the next task at hand. Every program has pros and cons so this took considerable amount of thought and prayer. The deadline for rank list finality was February 23rd. Since then, we have been "patiently" waiting for this upcoming week to arrive. In 3 days we will be notified of a match or no match status. In 6 days, if we match, we'll have breakfast at 8am with classmates and open our envelope at 9am. The location and program for our family's next 5 years decided!

The year definitely has gone quickly, but has not been as relaxing as most people claim 4th year to be. We're excited for the upcoming changes. Residency, and a new baby! Let's do this.

I Think We're Getting The Hang Of This

2010-03-24T08:54:00.001-07:00

OB/GYN coming to an end! This rotation really hasn't been bad at all! Our whole family is more used to the strange surgical hours. Mark was getting up anywhere between 3:45 and 4:45 am while on the surgical part of OB/GYN. When he was on call those days he wouldn't get home until after 7:30pm so there were a few stints where the kids would go almost 48 hours without seeing daddy. The first couple times were hard for them. I always tell them who daddy is helping at "work" and that he will give them a kiss when he gets home. I'm glad that they are so understanding about this because I know we'll experience a lot of these stretches in an ortho residency. The kids love asking Mark about what he does at the hospital. I'm proud to be able to tell them that daddy helping others is the reason he is missing time with them. The life of medicine really has to be a calling, esp when you have a family.

My son is almost fully potty trained during the day! Yes! Not only that but my 15 month old daughter tells me once or twice daily that she needs to go too...and she does! It makes me excited to know that possibly by the end of summer I could have two potty trained children, and NO MORE DIAPERS!!!!!! :)

Next week Mark starts a two week elective in ortho surgery. He's going to have a blast I already know. After that we dive into 12 weeks of surgery. 6 weeks of general surgery and 6 weeks of specialties. Now, I've got to find his passport so that he can go on a flight to pick up donor organs if there is extra room. I hope I can find that thing!

Beach

2010-02-20T15:00:00.000-08:00

The last couple weeks we got to get out of town for a little bit. We drove 5 hours to visit Mark's grandparents. It was fun! We visited family and stayed in a hotel for 2 nights. It was our first trip that was more fun and relaxing than stressful and draining because of the kids. It's nice that my 2 babies can walk, communicate, eat real food and drink from sippy cups! Makes things so much more enjoyable.

This weekend we went to the beach! My sister lives a 1 minute walk from the beach and we stayed with her for a night. Ahhhh! We also got to see some good friends and my parents.

Mark has finished his first week on ob/gyn. He is doing well but it's just not his cup o' tea. Some of the cases are discouraging. He's looking forward to his surgery rotation next. We're still plowing away on his away rotation applications. Background checks, copies of BLS cards, immunization records, etc. Still trying to decide his second place he should rotate. Any suggestions? He's trying to do something that isn't on the west coast.

2010 & 3rd Years Downhill Slope

2010-01-27T11:50:00.000-08:00

Thank you God! We're in the final half of year three and starting to actually fill out away rotation applications! The last couple months were BUSY. My husbands grandfather was diagnosed with cancer so we made the 5 hour drive to see him back in November. We spent the holidays with family and friends. We also celebrated our 6 year anniversary by spending a couple nights away while my parents watched the kids. (fun!) It was our first official nights away from them, can you believe that? That is what happens when you live far away from grandparents I guess. Our daughter also turned 1. I am officially a mom of a 2 and 1 year old! Exciting stuff let me tell you.

We spent most of December plowing through the endless list of orthopedic residency programs. For each one I googled the location city data as far as crime rates, education, weather, schools. I needed to be sure that I could survive and thrive in each location for 80 plus hours a week without my husband around. I looked at rental websites to make sure we could find a place to live that we could afford and checked which areas were most family friendly. I even made a note by each program that had an airport close by with a direct flight available to my parents location!
As far as for the programs themselves, there were some that made you do away rotations for months at a time in another state during your 5 years. Not okay with that! I mean how is that supposed to work for a family? I crossed those programs off the list. Others that didn't make the keeper list were programs that had only accepted residents from a certain location. I spent time going over the benefits each provided. Medical, dental, life and disability. Free meals on call days/nights, free parking. So, so, so many things to consider. My hubby wants to apply to 70 programs. yikes. So far, after months of this I have 46 on the keep list. Ugh!

We are now filling out applications for 4th year away rotations. We're shooting for two away rotations at 4 weeks each over this upcoming summer. Hopefully, if all goes well, we can get the dates that we want and the programs we want. Unfortunately neither of them participate in VSAS so we have a lot of printing out, filling out and mailing stuff going on.

I'm in the process of beginning potty training with my son. This has been harder than expected. (any advice out there is appreciated) I'm also trying to be a regular at my churches mom's group. It's for moms and their kids under 5. We get together once a week and let the kids play. We pray for each other and for the kids. Once a month is mom's night out which I have yet to go to. Hopefully this month! It's hard when M is gone weird hours to plan for that. Plus we've been getting sick a lot! Also, I'm in the process of starting to volunteer at our church nursery. It feels good to finally have the time and energy to do more than stay in my house and feed/change and entertain my kids. Honestly, for me the whole first year of my daughters life was just getting through each day making sure they were taken care of and that the house was in decent shape.

M is on ob/gyn next, and I'm looking forward to hearing about his first delivery. I wonder if its an advantage that he has already seen labor twice?

Encourager

2009-10-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

I went away for a while to try to get more organized at home and refocused. I'm writing again now and hope to make it a more regular event as time allows!

We are now at the end of October and 4.5 weeks into the required 12 weeks of internal medicine. We are surviving! We were warned that internal medicine and surgery rotations are the longest and involve a taxing schedule. What we weren't told about is how to plan when to do these rotations. We happened to pick internal medicine over the holidays. WRONG CHOICE! When you are on an inpatient rotation you are not guaranteed holidays off, but if you are on an outpatient rotation you do get those days off because most clinics are closed then. (Keep that in mind if you aren't to year 3 or 4 yet in school!) Lesson learned: do those rotations in the months that don't have the big holidays.

Mark's schedule this month is call every fourth day. This means he goes in around 6am (give or take an hour) and stays until midnight. He has to stay longer to finish any admit that walks in the door up to 11:59pm. He gets home after that and then turns right around and goes back around 6am again. That's right people. No post call day! In fact they only get a few days off the entire month. They round every morning including weekends. If one of their 3 days off during the month happens to have a class that day, they are still required to attend class.

What I am learning as a wife this rotation is to be an encourager. These are long hours and some cases are sad and do not have a pleasant prognosis. During this time our men need sleep, food, and to be able to just relax when at home. Encourage them!

Family Outpatient

2009-08-29T21:59:00.000-07:00

Hooray, peds rotation is over! It has been a nice weekend so far having Mark HOME! He is only going to be a 5 minute drive from our house this next month for his family rotation. Woot! Looks like it will be a fairly smooth September. We're also getting a car this month so we won't have to be sharing one car. (For those of you who don't know we have had 1 car since medical school started. It's a Honda Accord and its a great car. However, I used to drop him off and pick him up a lot from school. Or he would ride his bike, but it gets to be over 100 degrees regularly here and riding the bike didn't last too long. Two babies later...we still have 1 car. If he needs the car I'm at home ALL DAY. So if you couldn't tell I'm pretty excited that we're getting another vehicle!) My grandmother is letting us "buy" her car. It's going to be our pimp ride. A 1995 buick century. That's right folks, that's what the doctors are driving these days ;) Thank you parents for polishing it up and bringing it to us soon! When they get here we're also going to do Disneyland for the first time since we've lived here! I am probably the most excited out of my family. I haven't been there since I was young and I'm fully expecting greatness and magic.

Residency Countdown: I just realized that in less than a year applications have to be in. AH! Ladies if you are just starting medical school and you want it to go by fast...have kids...lol! I honestly don't know where the time goes anymore.

That's all for now, I'm exhausted and need to go to bed.

Call

2009-08-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

This month has been Mark's first experience on call overnight in the hospital. He has been leaving the house around 6am and getting home around noon the next day. I'm not quite sure that I've really felt the full effect of him being gone so long because I have had my mother in law or my mom stay the night each night he's been gone. It just happened to work out that they were visiting! I know I'm going to need to get used to the fact that I will be spending nights home alone with the kids. I'm curious as to how much over night call residency requires compared to when you are an attending. Also if it differs between academic hospitals vs. community, county hospitals etc. Anyone have any input?

A Pleasant Surprise

2009-08-04T08:59:00.001-07:00

On Friday, my sister-in-law called me. When I saw her name on the cell phone I had a gut feel about what she was going to say. Her husband had been accepted into medical school. The same one my husband attends, and his first day is Thursday! It's been a whirlwind of a weekend for them having to pick up and move 1,000 miles away with less than a week before class starts for him. I'm so excited that I'll have some family close by. I hope that we are able to give them an idea of what they're in for the next couple years!

I printed a list of orthopedic residency programs off of the AMA website. I printed them by state. Now I'm going through and looking at the websites. It is a weird feeling making judgments about a program based on how well their site is put together and what message it brings across. That is all we have to go on for most places though. If I were a program I would be putting a lot of time and money into that!

Whiny

2009-07-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

This last week I noticed everyone has been irritable. My daughter had her routine vaccinations. Irritable. My son is nearing two years old. Irritable. My husband and I are still trying to get our home organized and the kids to sleep through the night. Irritable! I'm not sure what my hormones are doing lately either. It's been seven months since I had my daughter and I still feel moody off and on. Also we found out that next year we most likely won't get enough money for school and still allow me to stay home with the kids. That is constantly in the back of my mind. I guess I hadn't prepared myself for the option of having to go back to work during medical school. I know that other women out there are working and raising children on their own and they are so strong! Me. I'm whiny. I hope that something works out so I can continue to be a stay at home mom. But ultimately I need to just be a little stronger and know that I'm blessed to have my husband and two healthy babies.

On another note...
I started really looking into different orthopedic surgery residencies around the country. If anybody has anything good or bad to say about different programs please let me know!

Where Have I Been?

2009-07-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

Whew! I'm back.

Our family was staying with my parents for 3 weeks in June. When we came back home we packed up our little condo, and moved into a house. My husband and I attended post second year requirement for the occupation of medicine (PROM) and boards bash! We also got his Step 1 scores back.

~It was so amazing to be able to see family and friends for an extended period of time. I want my kids to know their grandparents and vice versa! We had a great time.

~Our new home is such a blessing! It's twice the size of our old place. In a great neighborhood close to the medical center. Everyone has their own bedroom, and there's a large backyard!

~Mark worked very hard on planning boards bash. As class president this is one of their responsibilities. Its basically a time to have fun and celebrate step one and two years of medical school being over with. Most classes in the past have gone on a dinner cruise...blah. :) My hubby had a great idea that turned out super fun! He rented a bunch of carnival inflatables and had a barbecue. There were water slides, jousting, human foos ball and a bungee run. There were contests and prizes too. In my opinion that was so much better than a dinner cruise haha. Esp. since we had PROM too. That was also fun. It was a really nice dinner with speakers and presentations and a time of reflection.

~step one score: The Lord blessed all of Mark's hard work. His score is a really good one, and we can't be more thankful!

Ok so now:

Mark is finishing up his first month of MS3. This month he has been doing pediatric outpatient. It's a nice schedule with no weekends. He is learning how to see pediatric patients in the clinic setting and is doing well. It has been a good month for him to have a good schedule because of moving and getting settled into our new place. Next month is pediatric inpatient which won't be as cushy ;) In my spare time I'm looking up places for him to do his externships next year. So far he is thinking orthopedic surgery still, and thanks to his score he feels comfortable going for that specialty!

I'm really liking this year better than last. I'm not pregnant for once! lol. Mark is enjoying hands on learning. We are also so much closer to applying for residency and graduating. The kids are falling into a good routine, and we're just happy to be finally here in year 3. yay!

My Thoughts From This Week

2009-06-04T20:44:00.000-07:00

I haven't really talked about my kids a lot yet, but my oldest is 19 months and my little girl is 5 months. I just had to write and express my excitement that I am finally getting some sleep at night! My son goes to bed around 1830 or 1900. My daughter does now too! I only have to feed her once in the night around 0300 or 0400. It's simply wonderful. Her naps aren't all that great yet, but I'm cool with it if I can catch 4-5 hours in a row in the night. woo hoo.

On a side note, I've been totally busy trying to clean our house do laundry and pack for our family of 4. We leave tomorrow night for my parents house. Yet another plane ride. Yet another hope and prayer sent up that it will go smoothly and that there will be extra seats so the car seats can go on board. It makes things easier when the kids are in their seat instead of in my seat jumping up and down. Also, we'll be traveling with my husband, yay!

I always pack the skip hop double duo diaper bag the same every flight.

enough diapers for both kids for half a day
two travel wipes cases
infant tylenol given 30 minutes before take off ;) don't want those ears hurting
my bebe au lait hooter hider to feed the girl
rice cakes for the boy to eat on take off and landing (keep the pressure equalized!)
thomas the tank engine laptop for the boy
crayons and a surprise book to color for the boy
an extra outfit for the girl (i just know the blow out will happen on the flight)
jackets for the boy and the girl
my wallet
chapstick
cell phone
digital camera
empty sippy cup to fill on flight
cell phone charger!
soft rattly toy for the girl to play with
a pen
my planner
diaper changing pad
zip lock bag for the liquids

Tomorrow night I'll have help putting the kids to bed and get to see some close friends :) YAY!

It's been super hard the last couple months with Mark being gone SO much. He's been under lots of pressure. The last 3 weeks have been all testing from in house exams to mock boards. He is using his mock board scores instead of class rank when applying to residency. I'm so proud of him though for being able to help most nights with bath and bedtimes and making sure the kids and I know that he loves us. I'm excited to get step 1 over with and get started in on year 3. I think that things will change so much over the next couple years. I can't wait to watch Mark discover what part of medicine he loves and learn what he really wants to pursue for residency. So far he has thought orthopedic surgery. He's been working with ortho for a year and has presented research and loves scrubbing into surgeries. Waiting for his scores for the boards to come back is going to be anxiety ridden. We know that a score can make or break you for an ortho residency. Also our little man will turn 2 this year and the first year of our daughters life is nearly half way through. Soon we'll be seeing her crawl, walk and begin to talk! Tomorrow begins a resting period for me and a new chapter in this journey of medicine as a family.

End of MSII

2009-05-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

Today is Friday. There is officially one week left of MS year II. I can hardly believe we have reached the half way point and now we have to start thinking about away rotations and residency! Mark has scheduled his exam for the end of June in our home town. We'll be staying with my parents so that I can have help with the kids while he is out 8-5 studying. Being the "think into the far future" "plann-er ahead-er"of the relationship I have already printed out some instructions and requirements for away rotations.

Any suggestions on how to research away rotations? Is it possible that they could harm you more than help you for residency??

How It Started

2009-05-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

I graduated from nursing school in 2005. I had been married to my best friend from high school for a year and a half. He was applying to medical school for the first time. When he didn't get in anywhere he applied again for the following year as well as to graduate school for engineering. During that year of waiting to receive interviews we got pregnant with our first child who would be due in the Fall of 2007. When we hadn't heard that he'd been accepted anywhere by March of 2007 we thought he would definitely be doing engineering. We'd live 30 minutes from both of our parents while he went to school for his masters. I could keep working at my same job and have my parents watch the baby when he was born. We had things figured out.

In April we got a letter..."we'd like to interview you for medical school, blah blah blah." An interview? In April? That was a late interview! He went. He interviewed and time passed. We didn't hear a thing until June 18th when I answered the phone call saying Mark would start medical school in two months. Yikes!

Within a month we were moving to a new state. I had to find a new job. We had to find a new church. AND!! I had to find a new doctor whom I liked to deliver our baby when I was already twenty something weeks along. We were very excited, but a little nervous too.

Now here we are in 2009. Mark is a week away from being done with his 2nd year and USMLE step one is at the end of June. We now have 2 babies, 14 months apart. I am a SAHM. Mark is his class' president, and has been doing orthopedic research for almost a year.

I wanted to start this blog for those of us out there who are married to a man in medicine! We definitely need to connect with each other since we go through the same sort of things. I love my life. It's unique and challenging and has some extremely rough times, yet it's an exciting journey.

I'd like to hear your ideas on how to help support your man with boards coming up so soon! What are some things they can do to get a break from studying and get refreshed and recharged in a small amount of time so they can get back to studying :)

I would also like to hear some of your stories on how everything medicine started for you!