Third Year Rotations

Many people don't realize that medical school is only traditional schooling the first two years of it. The third and fourth years consist of doing rotations (or small internships in the main areas of medicine) and flying all over the country to interview for residencies.

At my husband's school half of the students have to move to a city 8 hours away for the last two years and the other half have to spend a minimum of 5.5 months in that same city (aka if you have a spouse with a job in the original city you must set up two households which is pricey!)

I was very ambivalent as to which one we got because there are many positives and negatives to both. If we stay in our current city than we have A's family around, I have a job, we already have an apartment I am comfortable being alone in, we are familiar with the city and like the weather better, etc. Some negatives include only one of my spouse girlfriends is staying behind in our city and I will have to be away from A for a minimum of 5 months which means frequent plane ride visits and maintaining two households on one small salary. Obviously if we move to the other city then many of those positives become negatives and vice versa. Another positive to the new city would be plane rides for residency would be way cheaper and most likely direct - something we really miss in our current town's small airport.

So - we had the big day last week that would decide our next two years (finally!) and now it is even more in the air! :) A got his #1 choice and we are staying in our current city and he has the minimum amount of time away - but it is all in a row and at the end of third year. So we still might move in January for the last 1.5 years! I can seriously relate to another medical spouse blogger's anxiety and fear of the unknown for her husband's residency spot. This is something I struggle with daily and for now I can just be thankful that I know where we will be for at least the next 11 months. Ha!

How do you all handle the unknown of being in the medical world? I feel like this is just the beginning and I need some better techniques!