I cannot count how many times my single friends and acquaintances have asked me to set them up with one of my husband’s friends who are, specifically, doctors. I will admit, at this stage in the game, it has some pretty major perks. (Oh, you’re the team doc for the hockey game this weekend and I can come? Why yes, I would love to join you. Oh, your graduation is at the TOP OF THE COLUMBIA TOWER? I’ll be there. No prob.) It’s actually pretty darn great. But there are some other things…most of which I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT before being married to a doctor. So enjoy this little look behind the scenes, and make sure your best friend reads it before going on that second date with that doc (or aspiring one!)

1. The qualities that make individuals really super at being physicians, also make them, uh…weird.

I mean this MOST lovingly. It’s obvious to everyone, I’m sure, that to make the insane sacrifices for training that physicians make (I talked about it in THIS POST), means that they’re

1. Probably a pretty type A (with at least a little smidge of OCD),
2. Don’t take criticism well (because, duh, they are likely to be highly competitive and have a strong preference for dominating everything they do)
3. Pretty good at isolating themselves to succeed at the academic pursuits they’ve chosen. (I mean, you don’t score well on STEP exams by being out with people all of the time. You have to be okay with being alone a lot).

Every specialty probably attracts a similar personality set. It’s actually quite entertaining to see how much alike my husband and his fellow Orthopedic Surgeons are at his practice. So if you don’t see the quirks at first, just wait for it…you will. But you’ll probably learn to love them as I have.

2. They do indeed make money, but they (usually) also get into major debt.

First of all, you do NOT get paid for any of the 1,532,248 hours you work in medical school. It’s SCHOOL. In residency, you finally get a salary, but it’s not great. The current average resident salary in the US is $59,300 per year, according to Medscape, and it varies by specialty. I think at one point, my husband did some crazy calculations and determined what his salary would be if he was paid per hour.

It was about $2.

$2.00 PER HOUR.

THAT IS INSANE. LIKE, FOR CRAZY PEOPLE ONLY. I MADE MORE THAN THAT BABYSITTING WHEN I WAS 11. AND I’M PRETTY SURE WE JUST WATCHED BLUE’S CLUES THE WHOLE TIME.

Whew. Okay. Moving on…

Fellowship is marginally more per year (think in the $60k-$75k range). When you are finally an attending, yes, SCORE, you finally make a substantial amount of money, but depending on the pay structure of the practice or academic institution you work with, you may not get to enjoy all of the financial benefits of the increase in salary for a while. Years, even. Then let’s not forget about that medical school debt. It is basically impossible to make a large dent in the repayment when on your residency or fellowship salary, when you are finally done with training, the debt is crazy.

Just for frame of reference, the average medical school debt is $166,750 (CBS News). (EDIT to add that this was back in 2013. More current data shows that the average annual cost of med school is between $36,000 and about $60,000 per year, depending on whether the school is private or not, and if the student is a resident of the state or not, putting current costs between $144,000 and about $240,000 a year. It’s outrageous and getting worse. See the article HERE). We are finally working our debt down now (just over one year out of fellowship).

3. Excessive work demands means that physicians can handle far less home demands.

Basically, marrying a doc means you are signing up to do A LOT more of the home stuff. I personally manage everything about our home life…finances, repairs, schedules, trips, doctor’s appointments, decorating, almost all shopping (PTL for Clicklist!!!!). Every single minute that a doctor is not working is mental break time and exceptionally important. This means that as hard as they try not to let it, they will often get overloaded by your requests because they can’t handle excessive demands on top of what they face in their day-to-day.

I did some exceptionally unsafe changing of light bulbs in our vaulted ceilings by myself recently. Imagine barstool, plus step stool, plus me at my max reach, because it had to be done and I wasn’t sure if my hubby would ever be able to fit it in! My husband has chores. He does them well. I just understand it may take him a loooooong time to get to them, at no fault of his own.

4. Call affects the family, too.

Every call situation is different depending on the type of physician you are and the institution or facility at which you are practicing. Some docs take “call” in-house (meaning they don’t leave the hospital), and others get the “luxury” of “home call”. Both situations SUCK. But “home call” is a massive downer for our family. My husband always takes “home call”, and gets called at seemingly inopportune times, about things that often frustrate him or stress him out. Even if you are fairly compensated to take “call”, it’s just plain not ideal. Our girls are often chasing him down the hall screaming while I try to redirect them so he can hear whoever is on the other end of the line. It’s ROUGH! But it’s part of this life and I try to support him through it the best that I know-how.

5. The physician “world” is another world that you become a part of, which may or may not be exciting to you.

And it’s a lovely, supportive world. But, if you’ve lived in middle-class land as we have for our whole lives thus far, it’s a different world. There are events with dresses and being fancy and appropriate, and if you’re like me, you’re pretty darn excited to take those heels off the moment you set foot back in your car at the end of the night and talk about how you REALLY feel about those little suspicious meat cakes the servers were handing out on repeat.

Side story: one time at an event (a big, important one for my husband), we were STARVING and were handed something that looked like yogurt. LOOKED like yogurt. What we actually got was a big, giant mouthful of a bitter matcha parfait, which was not sweet in the slightest. It tasted like blended wheat bread. Uh, yuck. Got to carry that around in a napkin for a while. Eww. But, I mean, can you really complain about being served anything? I digress.

Overall, being the spouse of a physician is a mysterious world, but as a whole package, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. He’s mine. I’ll keep him.❤️❤️

There is still so much more to tell, so stick with me and you’ll eventually hear it all! To hear more, super soon, head to visit me on Instagram or Facebook – I’d LOVE to see you there, friend!

Love and blessings!