What’s it like being married to a medical doctor (MD)?
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Anonymous
It’s not that interesting. It’s just that you say this isn’t a big deal, and then you give this schedule where you only sleep like 5 hours a night, and you do nothing but work and take care of your kids. |
Anonymous
“Mild” is 40 hours, not “60-80.” And every time you double down and retype “curious,” you sound even more like a troll. |
Anonymous
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Depends on the speciality. You don’t specify male doctors but I noticed everyone is assuming that.
I have two female friends one is a neurosurgeon and the other is a plastic surgeon. The neurosurgeon has three kids from eggs she saved before med school (very type A and from a wealthy family). She said most straight, female neurosurgeons are either divorced or single. She sadly will be in the first group in a few years based on her husband having a hard time with her income now that she’s through all the training. The plastic surgeon is happily married with a Mr. Mom type dude, she’s a very sweet girl but honestly was a big cheater before this relationship. So it’s interesting to me that that’s what everyone thinks about doctors. Like I’ve known her for 15+ years and she has cheated on every partner she’s ever had except her husband. I also have a cousin who is a plastic surgeon. He traded out his original wife for a younger one and when his kids asked to live with him, his new wife would only let them stay in the basement of their house. I honestly was shocked because growing up I never would have thought he would be that kind of person. |
Anonymous
Like the help. I had to look away because I wanted to punch him. She was very pregnant at the time, was working a regular full time job (analyst of sort, IIRC), and seemed to treat his orders as if they came from God him/herself. Blech! |
Anonymous
| Divorce rate is higher for female physicians than for males. |
Anonymous
| Most male doctors can manage to work because wives hold the fort. Females often don't have this luxury. Unless they are in lucrative specialties, they can't afford nannies, maids and house managers. |
Anonymous
| Higher earning their specialty, bugger jerk they tend to be, specially women tend to develop delusion of grandeur. Us PCPs and pediatricians are more down to earth. |
Anonymous
Yes this is what I wondered. That is creepy, and your gyno should’ve known better… |
Anonymous
| Depends on the specialty. The cons I’ve noticed are that many have inflexible schedules and limited leave. Like, can’t get the day after Thanksgiving off, can’t get 2 weeks off at Xmas etc. |
Anonymous
Sleep 6hrs/night, weekends mostly free, minimum 3-4hrs/day with kids. This is for two adults and flexible. |
Anonymous
If you are used to 80+ hrs/week, only 40 is a vacation. |
Anonymous
I think your schedule is fiction, but if not your life sounds absolutely miserable. |
Anonymous
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What’s it like—well, it depends completely on the specialty and on the doctor, and also on his or her career stage.
My husband is in a specialty and work environment that has regular hours. (This is the opposite of his late father, who was a private practice general surgeon.) The flip side is there are few jobs in my husband’s specialty, so when he changed jobs a few years ago he ended up with a long commute. I think one difference between his job and my non medical desk job is that he does not have as much schedule control. Like if he wants to take time off, it’s not like he can do the work ahead of time and leave—someone else has to cover him, and that all needs to be worked out months ahead of time. This need for “coverage” is true in many professions, and not unique to medicine, but I feel like medicine tends to be more short staffed since doctors are expensive. Also the potential consequences of any slip ups in healthcare have direct human and personal impact, so there is a higher stress level and awareness of liability issues. For example I often skimped on sleep, especially when we had young kids, but he insisted on always being well rested. Being around illness and death all day definitely does change people. Some of the things DH described, back during residency especially, were horrific. That has two sides; if our kids were injured or something he wouldn’t be anxious or squeamish like I would but he wouldn’t be the person anyone would go to for empathy either. When my dad died I was broken; when his dad died he was able to cope much better since for him death was part of life. We had to move a lot for his training back in the day—he did two fellowships. Those moves permanently impacted my career—I ended up in a respectable position, but not in the field I had trained in and wanted to do (I have a PhD, so I too spent a lot of time training.) Since we had kids, I had to stick to really flexible jobs. We ended up across the US from my hometown. I think most of these are general dual-career issues and I have made my peace with them—the flip side is that he does outearn me and we have financial stability now. We live in a VHCOL city and despite dual income, we would not be able to afford significant household help. We live a normal upper middle class lifestyle. The rich people are the techbros. So anyway what’s it like to be married to a doctor—your mileage may vary. It all depends on the doctor and their specific job and work environment. |
Anonymous
Whatever. It sounds like working from 8pm-midnight M-F is really sitting in your bed with your laptop from whenever the kids go to bed until you get tired and go to sleep. And you do it another time if you have something else you want to do on a Friday evening or whatever. It’s not exactly like working 65-80 hours a week in the emergency department or the intensive care unit or even a busy outpatient clinic. |
Anonymous
The main difference is our jobs pay much better. Maybe instead of trolling others, you should focus on yourself. |