My husband is currently finishing year 8 out of 9 years of medical training, and while HE is the resident physician, to an extent I feel like “we” – him, me, and our children – are all on this medical training journey together. When the residency years have me at my wit’s end due to the long hours spent solo-parenting, call nights, the meager bank account, the anxiety around one big exam after another, or any other number of stressors that come with residency, I like to remember the ways we are truly fortunate to be at this point in my husband’s medical career. I don’t mean forcing myself to think happily about tough times in a toxic-positivity way – residency is HARD, and there is no getting around that; I mean pausing to take stock of things to be grateful for right now and create a positive shift in my mental and emotional energy. These are the things I often come back to:
1. The residency years are full of chances to learn and grow both personally and professionally. These years are a struggle, but the struggle is often where the growth happens.
2. Residency paychecks may be meager for the number of hours worked, but they are steady.
3. Resident physicians generally have good job security during training, provided they pass all the exams and meet all the training requirements.
4. Residency does not last forever. The financial hardship, the 80+ hour work weeks, the stressful exams, the expensive applications and exam fees, having your life choices dictated by The Match – they are all temporary.
5. The end of residency means an increase in pay. This looks different for everyone, but we are fortunate to know that after a certain number of tough years, we will get a raise.
6. There will always be a job. And even if the traditional physician career path isn’t for your family, completing medical training provides so many different kinds of job opportunities. For example: medical education, healthcare consulting, medical writing, corporate physician jobs, or insurance company jobs.
7. If you put yourself out there, the medical training years can forge lifelong friendships among the trainees and their families.
8. We might not all love our medical school, residency, or fellowship cities, but medical training provides the opportunity to live in places we might not otherwise choose. New places also mean the opportunity to meet new people and have new experiences.
9. If you or your family need to receive medical care at your training hospital, you will likely be treated with a little extra care and concern, because the healthcare staff are also your coworkers and friends.
10. The hard work and sacrifices during the medical training years are all so that patients can receive the medical care they need, to improve their health or to save their lives. When he comes home late because a patient was bleeding out, or because he wanted to make sure a patient hand-off went perfectly, I take consolation that if he’s not with us, he’s doing VERY important work for others.
