Odds of staying in the same place through the whole journey

[NotAnOperator]

Little background: I'm active duty military and my contract is up in 2 years in which I will begin my path to become a physician. My wife will be graduating law school in 2 years also. We have spent a huge amount of our relationship physically separated and we both hate it. Our relationship is amazing, we are happy and grateful and madly in love still after being together for 4+ years (and apart for about 2 of them). Once she finishes law school and I'm out of the military, our plan is to settle down in Texas. I plan on attending one of Texas' state med schools and she will practice as an attorney in Texas so we can both finally live together year round. So my question is, what are the odds of me being able to stay in one place throughout med school, residency and being a practicing physician? As for specialty, I'm open to nearly everything except primary care (EM, ortho, gen surg, derm, rad, patho, neuro, etc) but I understand my goals will probably narrow after a few rotations. I love my wife more than anything and I desperately want to just sleep in the same bed every night and maybe have dinner together once in a while. As an attorney, she can't just get up and move whenever I have to. So is it possible/likely to just settle down in a big Texas city (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin) and stay there together for the rest of our days?

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[Follow the Cairns]

Well, I don't think you can ever really count on staying in one location throughout your training, and the more competitive a residency you want, the more open you will have to be to relocating. I think the density of med schools and training institutions is more important than the size of the city. In Houston, you have BCM and UT- Houston and their affiliated hospitals. I suppose you could throw UTMB in Galveston in there as well since it is part of the metro area. In Dallas, you have UT-Southwestern.... You could throw the net a little farther and pull San Antonio and Austin into the mix and worse case scenario, be separated by 3 hours.

Contrast that with cities in the NE like NYC or Boston where your options for number of Med schools and training programs is higher.

Just know that one, or both, of you might have to compromise and it is always tougher when both partners have huge investments in both time and $$ in their careers. Oh, and thank you for your service.

 

[NotAnOperator]

Well, I don't think you can ever really count on staying in one location throughout your training, and the more competitive a residency you want, the more open you will have to be to relocating. I think the density of med schools and training institutions is more important than the size of the city. In Houston, you have BCM and UT- Houston and their affiliated hospitals. I suppose you could throw UTMB in Galveston in there as well since it is part of the metro area. In Dallas, you have UT-Southwestern.... You could throw the net a little farther and pull San Antonio and Austin into the mix and worse case scenario, be separated by 3 hours.

Contrast that with cities in the NE like NYC or Boston where your options for number of Med schools and training programs is higher.

Just know that one, or both, of you might have to compromise and it is always tougher when both partners have huge investments in both time and $$ in their careers. Oh, and thank you for your service.

Thank you for the input. I wouldn't mind going to school somewhere in NE (since my wife is in law school in CT right now) but since we want to settle in Texas, it might be difficult for her to set up and practice for a few years there and then get up and leave when I'm done with training. Law is all about who you know and the connections you make unfortunately.
So I think the Houston area will be our best bet. Hopefully I can get into one of the schools there!

 

[ThoracicGuy]

Thank you for the input. I wouldn't mind going to school somewhere in NE (since my wife is in law school in CT right now) but since we want to settle in Texas, it might be difficult for her to set up and practice for a few years there and then get up and leave when I'm done with training. Law is all about who you know and the connections you make unfortunately.
So I think the Houston area will be our best bet. Hopefully I can get into one of the schools there!

Unless you have Texas residency, your chances of getting a spot in Texas for medical school is slim.

 

[NotAnOperator]

Unless you have Texas residency, your chances of getting a spot in Texas for medical school is slim.

I have Texas residency