How many more moves do you anticipate?

[fantasty]

I'm sorry - I'm getting older now (MSTP will do that to you). I really don't want to keep moving - for residency, for fellowship, for postdoc, for my first faculty position. I'm really hoping that I can find a good permanent home whereever I do residency. Granted, with CSTP/PSTP's this might become less problematic. But, am I deluded in thinking that I could get by with just one more move (either move for residency, or wait until postdoc or junior faculty positions)?

To frame the question better, I plan on doing medicine. I've considered GIM, although I think I would enjoy rheum/ID/allergy. My research plans are much more in the epidemiology / clinically-oriented realm. I'm at a school that I could easily get everything I want for residency and other training, but the long-term faculty prospects are hard to judge (plus there are a few other cities I would prefer to live in long-term).

I know that some academicians feel we have to "reinvent" ourselves every few years. But, my feeling at this stage is that I can get quality training in an IM residency / subspec at a number of places. I think that a) geographic location and b) long-term opportunities are going to be more important for me when it comes time to apply to residencies (still a few years out for me).

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[b&ierstiefel]

Yeah, this whole moving thing is a pain in the butt. It's hard to settle down and buy a place, for example, if you only plan on staying at a certain location for a few years. Then if you rent, you're saying goodbye to your money.

I anticipate a few more moves in my career. Where I go next, I'll probably spend anywhere from 5-6 years maybe more depending on how long my postdoc is. Then perhaps I shall move again. Who knows?

 

[beary]

I hate moving too!! I actually would love to stay at the same place for MSTP, residency/postdoc, and faculty. I have heard from some folks though that it is important to get perspectives in different places (I started a thread about this on the pathology forum a while back). I guess what I am thinking now is to move once for residency/postdoc (do these at the same place in a clinician-investigator type program), and then either stay at the same place for faculty position or else come back here for a grand total or one or two more moves. However, I understand that staying at the same place for too long can somewhat stall your career since institutions can take advantage of you - when some other place is recruiting you they usually offer you goodies like more lab space, etc. Ultimately I think it will be up to us - if the goodies are worth the pain of moving. At least right now I hate moving so much that I would say no.

 

[BDavis]

Granted, with CSTP/PSTP's this might become less problematic. But, am I deluded in thinking that I could get by with just one more move (either move for residency, or wait until postdoc or junior faculty positions)?

My wife and I will be at the same institution for 8 years when I finish the MD/PhD program so I am looking forward to moving. When I move I think I will try to track towards an area where there are multiple institutions to reduce the likelihood that I would have to move a long distance (since my wife will be in private practice and the main breadwinner). We will look at areas like the Research Triangle, Boston, New York, Cleveland, and the Bay Area.


A recent alumnus from our program came back and talked about her ascent to an assistant faculty member at UCSF. She had two children, did her residency (medicine), fellowship/postdoc (allergy/rheum) and received a tenure track position (all at UCSF). She didn't seem to imply it was relatively easy for her to stay at the same institution. She did mention that most of the other allergy/rheum fellows went into industry and private practice (although I think this is partly due to the high cost of living to raise a family in UCSF).

 

[alhkim]

I am in my last year of MD/PhD training, applying to IM, looking at Rheum for fellowship, and haved applied to both PSTP and non-PSTP programs. I hate to move also, and it became important to me to look and rank programs where I can do a IM and Rheum at the same institution/hospital where both programs are ranked/respected highly. That way I can stay in that city for at least 5 or so years before thinking about moving. Furthermore, for the PSTP programs, that really seems like a recruiting tool for the hospital for you to not only stay for fellowship but also initiate your junior faculty work also (many of my interviews quickly focused on how good that hospital is with protecting young, new faculty). That inherently makes you think about staying for 10, maybe more, years at one spot.

 

[NGN47]

Where I am at school, there seems to be an active attempt to retain MSTP graduates. As an estimate, I would say that maybe more than half of the graduates each year stay here for residency, and probably about half also end up as faculty. This is a guess though, but it is not far off. Hopefully I won't ever be moving!