The Long Adventures

First things first.. apologies for all the feet in this shot haha. I didn’t want to distract Mitchell by attempting to get the best framed picture so I just snapped something real quick to commemorate the moment. And it happened to have my feet and Ava’s, oops. C’est la vie!

One day, this moment will just become another footnote (ahahhaa, sorry - I couldn’t help myself) in our story but today, it’s a huge deal. Mitchell and I both at our laptops, combing over his personal statements for his application for a fellowship.

A quick refresher on the journey one takes to become a physician..

There’s medical school and residency. You get no income during medical school. People usually rely on loans or familial support (we are the latter). Residency is where your learn your specialty. In Mitchell’s case it’s orthopedic surgery. Some choose to do a fellowship after residency. A fellowship is where you further specialize in your specialty. Mitchell is applying to spine fellowships. Physicians are still considered in training during residency and fellowship and are typically paid quite low. Mitchell’s home hospital is a county hospital so his residency pay is over $15,000 less than the local average. After fellowship is when a physician is considered an attending (what laypeople probably think of as a typical doctor). So the path is: premedical student, medical student, resident, fellow, attending.

One should know that advancement to every level requires applications (comprised of personal statements and letters of recommendation) as well as thousands of dollars to submit the applications and then travel for interviews. In addition to the aforementioned, it’s required that you take a three part licensing exam (USMLE) as well. The first exam, USMLE Step 1, is arguably the most important one. Your Step 1 score will dictate which specialty you can be considered for. This article is a little dry but it has some great charts depicting Step 1 scores versus specialties. As of 2020, the USMLE Step 1 cost $645.

Not all residencies are the same duration. Orthopedic surgery is five years whereas something like Emergency Medicine is three years. There is a chance you won’t match into a residency your first time, especially if you’re going for a more competitive field. That was the case for Mitchell so he did a traditional rotating internship (TRI year) before applying again. Ava was born during Mitchell’s first year of medical school. She’ll be ten years old when Mitchell becomes an attending.

Have I lost your interest?! I wouldn’t blame you :)

Hopefully this will help underscore why I wanted to commemorate that moment. I have been with Mitchell through every progression. I have helped proofread all the applications and even multiple research papers that he’s worked on. It was wild to think that this would be our last time going through the process of applications, which understandably always ushers in stress and anxiety. Fellowship interviews will be held virtually this year due to COVID-19. A small silver lining since he won’t have to travel for interviews (although he bemoans that he won’t get the same experience of visiting potential program in person). I always coordinated all his travel and accommodations reservations too so that was another ball to juggle.

We are gearing up to possibly be apart for his one year of fellowship. I felt strongly about keeping Ava and Theo in the same school as long as we can. I’d rather the kids do one move for Mitchell’s first attending job versus moving for fellowship and then attendingship again. The symmetry lover in me smiles because we were apart for his first year of medical school too (he was in Iowa, I was in SoCal.. he even watched Ava’s birth through FaceTime).

I’m quick to take umbrage when I get labeled quickly as a doctor’s wife. I understand how people are trying to pigeonhole me as when they mutter that. It makes me scream because they usually don’t understand the depth of how hard this journey has been on Mitchell, myself, us as a couple and parents, on our children, and our families. All of the sacrifices made.

I suppose it’s a weird juxtaposition.. to have Mitchell’s career completely mold the course of our lives and then to also have this urge to fight against it. To be understood that our identities, our lives are more than his career. Does that even make sense? It does to me but I’m struggling to articulate it. Writing this post has been cathartic though so thanks for coming along this rambling with me.

I guess life is weird like that. C’est la vie!