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Married to a Medical School Student
That’s me. At one time, my partner Megan worked for Luther Seminary in St. Paul, during which time she began a support blog for the spouses of seminary students in the distance learning program she coordinated. So surely it’s only fair for me now to reflect on being a med school spouse. My advice in a sentence: be flexible, and remember it’s not really about you.
Ten things on being married to a med school student:
- It ain’t cheap. Yes, you know this, but you perhaps forgot about the be-gillions of costs above tuition — books, scalpels, a PDA, tests, a stethoscope, etc. (that Fisher Price set just doesn’t cut it anymore.)
- You’re a natural guinea pig. Every eight weeks, I pretend to be a standardized patient. This is cool, except when your spouse uses the largest hole thingy to look in your ear and nose (didn’t happen to me, but a friend. He screamed. She was supposed to use the smaller one.)
- Get ready to cook a lot. Again, not just my experience but shared by the other spouses. I cook most meals for us, which I really enjoy. It’s a gift to provide nourishment for those gray cells.
- Your schedule is determined by the testing schedule. Before Megan started, I had heard stories of spouses taking vacation by themselves in the week before their partner’s exams. I thought this was over the top, until I experienced the whole-household stress of pre-exam week. Multiple-day meetings away never looked so good.
- It’s totally cool seeing your spouse thrive. Well, at least that’s the case for me. Megan loves learning, and I love seeing her happy.
- You’re the connection to the outside world. I’ve always been the newsy one in the family, but that’s increased ten-fold since med school. Med students study a ton, and that’s about it (well, they try to sleep a bit, at least). Heck, even the curriculum at UND couldn’t accommodate a discussion on health care reform when it passed.
- Ice cream, cookies, and surprise coffee deliveries are a bonus for everyone.
- In med school hangouts, most conversation goes over your head. Embrace it: this presents a great opportunity for cheesy jokes and puns.
- It takes a while to benefit from your spouse knowing all things medical (apparently, they must not learn all things medical until year three or so). The joke, “you’re in medical school, can you look at this _________” gets old. But, yes, it’s still fun
- Make your dates and rituals to incorporate studying. For example, most Thursdays late afternoon finds us in Starbucks together — Megan studying, me writing. Saturday morning bakery runs are a fun date as long as you read the paper and your spouse reads lecture notes. That’s life these days. It’s fun. Be flexible.
image by sanja gjenero
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1. She needs a PDA?! As in “personal digital assistant”?! As in Palm Pilot?! Really?!! Doesn’t your Android work for this?
3. Cooking’s fun, but it is nice to not have to do it ALL the time.
5. Thriving spouses are the best.
8. Sounds like theological hangouts.
It’s fun to hear about your side of Megan’s life! I feel like Ellie’s life as a teacher has many similar aspects, especially when it comes to schedule and time.
All our best!
I don’t know if it’s good news or bad to say the PDA is an iPod touch — they get it in January, I think. Unfortunately, there’s no companion iPad program for the med school spouse
Thanks for the comments.
Yes to all of those. Let me advise you to lay some additional ground rules.
1. We will NOT discuss, NOT EVER, pus or other bodily excretions, at the dinner table.
2. We will NOT use our spouses to practice drawing blood.
3. When the time comes for graduation, spouses should be recognized in meaningful ways.
As a current seminarian in the DL program who misses your wife intensely AND a former med student spouse, I cheer your list as very practical and necessary–although I think you should add that part about how med school spouses should be recognized at graduation. And I will point out that we bought her stethoscope!
Another good point is “Develop your own interests.” You’re lucky in that you have your own degree and career, but a lot of people are stuck waiting for their spouse to finish med school and don’t continue to grow themselves. Here they’ve got a spouse whose brain is exploding with new knowledge–so they need to find something they’re interested in and pursue it!
And for Marci–give up on #1, honey. It is inevitable. Once the family becomes medical, all manner of revolting fare becomes just another dinner conversation.
Hang in there. I’m a Resident wife, and I feel your pain. My husband is doing his 4th year of 5 for orthopedics, and then another year of fellowship. It truly feels like it never ends, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I wish I could say that the cooking and endless studying ends after med school, but it doesn’t. In fact it gets a little worse before it gets better. But, we knew what we were signing up for! Continue to be the rock of strength and support they need us to be. Tell them to stop when you know they’ve studied enough for the night and need to spend time with you or the family. It’s our job to keep them grounded…so continue to do that! But also find the “you” time too. We have 2 boys and I cherish the girls nights and book club nights once a month.
Continue to keep up your sense of humor, and enjoy the time you have together-it’s so limited sometimes! And celebrate when they graduate…my husband and I went out for a movie after the ceremony and he bought 2 full price tickets. I asked him what he was doing…get the student discount! He told me for the first time in 16 years he wanted to celebrate the fact that he was no longer a student
As a medical spouse of 11 and a half years… I think that is all good advice above! I met my now husband the month before he started med school. We started living together (in a share house with two other med students) in his second last year of med school. I got really good at falling asleep with the light on as he studied… We survived intern year ( he started in ortho surgery and worked 13 days straight in his first two weeks of work!). We were both away from family so it got a bit lonely – thankfully the next year we moved back to my home town so I’ve had more support ( and in turn, am better able to support him) We put off kids until he finished his early training – for me that was hard because it’s likely to mean not as many kids as we would like. Anyway – it’s still a bit of a grind but he still makes me smile just by being himself.
Oh & as for the gross dinner conversations… I can totally outgross doctors with my job (I’m a wastewater engineer and have some *nasty* stories about sewage. I’ve also got the high moral ground because my organisation does more for basic public health than a hospital full of doctors! We keep the water supply safe and take away the wastewater for treatment and disposal. They’d really know they were busy without safe water!!!
Loved this BTW! My husband also received an iPod Touch among other cool things were his laptop that you do not need to input a password to log-in, rather your thumb print! I’m not sure these things are necessary but hey if you’re spending so much already, may as well put in another couple thousand & get a few neat things along the way! In the grand scheme of things a couple thousand- you’re not going to notice!
I randomly came across your blog linked from some other random blog…. and I must admit, burst into tears while reading this post. ha. It is a fantastic list of 10 basics. But the tears came when I realized you and Megan are in Grand Forks! We lived there our whole lives and although UND accepted my husband, we felt like God was telling us to make a mega life change and see what else is in the world that I can’t learn from the GF Herald. We’ve been in MO and KS now for medical school… but although the adventure is fun, sometimes the loneliness of being a “med school widow” and homesickness for good ol’ North Dakota hits me at silly times this. I’d love to hear how she is feeling about her education there…. great blog…