Working in one city, living in another

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Fluester

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Anyone ever worked in one city (where the job is better) but lived in another city? And by this I mean have you ever spent 3-4 days working in the one city and then traveling back to the other city for the other 3-4 days? Anybody commute long distance for their job on a daily basis?

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I knew an attending who lived in minnesota and would work 7 straight nights in ohio. She would stay in a hotel while in ohio and drove back to minnesota when she was done. Worked fine for her
 
This is pretty common where I work. The EM physician group owns a house near the hospital and you can rent rooms between shifts.

I rent a room in the town where I work and try to work all of my days in a row. I have an apartment in the city about 70 miles away for days I don't work.
 
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Thanks for the responses. Njac, how many days do you work a month? Do you find that it wears on you?
 
So I'm the ED pharmacist - I work 4 10hr shifts/wk, so I'm physically at the hospital more days per month than most of the docs.

I try to run my shifts together and so 8 on - 6 off, but I work opposite a partner and she likes to see her kid once in awhile which makes that harder.

My quality of life has gone up 1000%. I originally moved out near the hospital (and thusly described it as the suburban dream on crack) and after a year got an apt in the city. Yes, it sucks going from living alone in a big condo to having a room in the suburbs with 4 roommates and 2/3 of an apt in the city with a roommate, but it's worth it to me to be able to take cabs/walk places when I go out and not worry about getting a DUI coming home from the local dive where I just rubbed elbows with the frequent flyers.

We have people who have worked there for 30+ years with that arrangement, I find it totally doable. It would be far more aggravating to drive the 70
Miles twice a day. I know some people do that too, but that would make me much crankier.
 
My upcoming contract is 7 days MICU attending fly home for 7 days off. rinse repeat. Can be tweaked to 10 on 10 off, 14 on 14 off, depends on how the other players want their schedule to be. i know alot of attendings who did something similar and were quite pleased.
 
I would just say this. it would be hard if you had kids you wanted to see. Any significant travel really eats into your time, (flight delays etc.), also driving can get dangerous and we in EM are the types to really push ourselves.

I think in terms of quality of life it isnt great especially once you have a family.
 
A PEM doc i work with lives in the St. Louis area and works in the Chicagoland area. He comes out, does a PM shift, sleeps in the on call room, then does a day shift and then drives home. He does that a few times a month.
 
A PEM doc i work with lives in the St. Louis area and works in the Chicagoland area. He comes out, does a PM shift, sleeps in the on call room, then does a day shift and then drives home. He does that a few times a month.

Does this sound appealing in any way?
 
I drive ~70 miles one way Saturday morning, do a day shift, sleep in the company apartment Saturday night, do Sunday day, drive home. Maybe 1 night shift during the week in the month. Worth ~$200K/year.

Not dangerous, I get M-F off, and I really like the crew with which I work.

I don't fault people who have their one job they have ever had, and love it, and so on, but don't try to tell other people that what they do isn't right. It's like marrying your first girlfriend you met when you were 15 - prom date, first girl you kissed, first girl you screwed, married early, deathly in love, maybe a couple of kids - that is lovely and perfect. However, your advice to another person about who to date or where to find them is of little value. Or, to put it another way, it's like people on SDN from Canada or Australia or the UK, who talk about doing "X", and, collectively, people raise their eyebrows, saying "we don't do that because of COBRA/EMTALA/whatever", and the first people say "well, that's how it is where we are!". Umm, OK.

Or, to belabor the point :)beat:), if we were talking about the weather, and if I was still living in Hawai'i, for me to say "I don't have to shovel the snow. Roads are clear and it is sunny and warm", and I wasn't being sarcastic, but sincere, my weather on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific cannot be extrapolated to the US at large.
 
not everyone has a family... some people have big time extenuating circumstances. i've considered doing such a thing for the right deal if it came along, but purely for the $$ and would be time-limited.
 
I drive 60 miles to work. I live in a large city, drive out about an hour to a smaller town. The group is great, and pay is good, so its worth it to me. I work an average 4 days a week. sometimes 3, sometimes 5. total 15-16 shifts per month. I actually prefer to work in another city -- I dont want to run into my patients outside of work. I just put on some good music and use that time to unwind. I, however, dont have any kids.
 
at my first job I commuted 63 miles one way every day. wife was in grad school in 1 town and I worked in another.
currently work in 2 different states and commute 3 hrs for a block of shifts once/mo then go home and work my regular job then repeat.
 
People do it.. no doubt.. but its hard to do long term and its probably not great for your life.
 
The group I work with has 30+ year members who have primarily commuted in this manner. Many of the younger members (although men) have kids and make it work. At least the distance most of us travel is <100 miles, so if you absolutely have to go home, you can.
 
How do you know this? My anecdotal experience tends to greatly say otherwise (meaning not me, but people with whom I have worked).

my group has internal moonlighters who do this full-time... travel 2 separate weeks a month and off the rest. they are paid well and can live wherever they want. no consistent politics to deal with... they all choose to do it and the ones i know wouldn't go back to a regular schedule.
 
I moved to where I worked for my first job. The problem with this is that you get to live amongst all the wonderful people that frequent your department. What I ended up choosing was to move to a place where there was a school for the kid and enough hospitals that I had many job options within an hour or two drive. That way whatever happened at work, we wouldn't have to relocate.

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my group has internal moonlighters who do this full-time... travel 2 separate weeks a month and off the rest. they are paid well and can live wherever they want. no consistent politics to deal with... they all choose to do it and the ones i know wouldn't go back to a regular schedule.

That's fine. Just like OTR truckers, US Marshals, international airline pilots, etc.

It's just hard to remember what your kids like when you never see them. They also miss you. Some people don't want families, and these situations are likely ideal.

I would love to spend a few years doing locums in exotic places just so I can experience them, but I can't right now. Maybe after my kid(s) graduate high school. Think of it as a sort of retirement. Go someplace, work a week, visit a week. Rinse and repeat.
 
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