Advice for a friend

[allan120]

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A good friend of mine needs some advice regarding a possible long distance relationship with a medical school student. Here is her dilemma, if you have some insight, please post here and I will direct her to the URL. Thanks in advance.

"I am a 22 year old female that has been going out with a 26 year old male who is going to attend Jefferson in the coming school year. We have known each other for 2.5 years and were in a relationship for 18 months out of the two years. We met in school and had a wonderful relationship, but I am worried about the distance, the hours that he will have to study and the time that I will not have with him. He will be ~40min. away.

I love him dearly, but I am also a realist. I have a job with a large financial firm, and I would not want to leave the company to be by his side. I would like to hear from anyone that is married or in a relationship and have a similar situation. I guess all I hear from everyone is that it will be difficult and lonely for me, and I just want to know if it is really that bad. I want to see if we can turn the dreams we have had into plans, not just dreams...

Anyone have an opinion?"

 

[paean]

40 minutes isn't very far. I'm not very clear what your friend is worried about. Will he have less play time (after studying)? Probably. That doesn't mean that medical students have no free time. It's hard, but not much harder than undergrad during the first 2 years at most schools, and since most of us don't work, we do have time for friends and SOs. My question would be are they living together now and planning to live seperately. That's the most significant thing this transition might bring. Other than that, I would think that her job might affect their relationship as much or more that his education.

 

[IlianaSedai]

40 minutes? That's it? At 40 minutes, you <B>are</B> literally by his side... From right in the middle, 20 minute drive to your work, 20 minute drive to his.

Just keep the job. If he's going through med school and you stick with him all the way through residency and any fellowship, and he's out of the house for 80 hours during some of his residency weeks... you won't want to be facing the empty house for 80 hours. 🙂 Plus, you'll want to give yourself some stuff to do while he studies and/or works.

 

[GoodMonkey]

woo... 40mins? that's nothing! totally managable. keep the job. 🙂

my $0.02

 

[allan120]

To answer paean and to clear a few things up:

My friend and her ex do not and have not lived together. The plan is for them to be in a somewhat LDR for the first two years of medical school, and then get married before rotations. They would then live together.

Time is her primary concern. I figured they could spend time together on the weekends at the very least. The funny thing is that in the past, her job was about as demanding of her time and attention as medical school will be on his.

Thanks for everyone's input. Please keep it coming.

 

[jen414]

Hi,
I haven't posted on here in a while but I do have some thoughts that you can share with your friend. I, myself, am in a similar situation. My fiance is a first year at Jefferson. He is living in Philly and I am working and living in NY. We will be getting married in June of 2004. If you do the math, we have another 1 1/2 of being GU (geographically undesirable). From the very beginning I knew my fiance wanted to be a doctor. His desire to be a physician and his hard work ethic was just one of the reasons why I feel in love with him. I decided a long time ago, that if this relationship was to go anywhere I would have to be supportive of his dreams. If you love someone how can you not be supportive of them? So with this question in my mind, I decided to stop worrying about how medical school will affect me and our relationship and started figuring how we can make this work. And we did. His first semester is complete and he just started his second. The first semester is an adjustment period, both for your med student and yourself. I learned that no matter how many hours he is studying he would much rather be relaxing and spending time with me. We are about 2 to 4 hours away from each other (have to consider that NY traffic), so that is much better than 40 minutes. But we worked very hard and saw each other one to two weekends a month (depending on exams) and talked on the phone almost every night. Medical school and long distance relationships are doable. There have been thousands of people who have done it before us, and there will be thousands more after us. Each person is different, but take this time to learn things that you want to learn, and do things that you have always wanted to do. Distance can be a good thing, because it allows you to make yourself a better person, which only means your relationship grows stronger because there are two unique strong individual characters. I am a firm believer that things always work out in the end. If life wasn't a little challenging, we would never appreicate the great times we have. Now would we?

 

[djwdv]

very do-able. 2 of my close friends have a bi-coastal relationship! she's at jefferson.. he's in silicon valley working hi-tech. their secret? it's much easier to keep a long distance relationship when one half of it is working and has money to travel, pay the long distance phone bill, etc. he'd pay for her to fly out (she studied for boards out here in CA) or fly over to philly to visit and they got a cell phone plan where long distance is free and calling within the same plan was free - and this was (still is) bi-coastl - so 40 min. should be a breeze!

 

[edmadison]

40 minutes? Are you kidding me? When my wife and I started dating, she lived in Jersey City, NJ and I lived in Brooklyn Heights. That's about 2.5 miles apart. I could literally see my apartment across the harbor from the roof of her building. Best case scenario, it took an hour to get from one place to the other. I never once considered that a hassle. The only thing that pissed me off was the damn long distance calls. I guess I should have learned how to use semifore flags!

Ed

 

[allan120]

My friend said that it is not so much the distance that concerns her. She is worried about the lack of free time to do things and live life with her gentleman as he works through the first two years, then rotations, and then residency. Her sister had a boyfriend who went to Jefferson (c/o 2003) and he barely had any time for her so they broke up. My friend is afraid that the same thing will happen to her.

Thanks again to all for your advice.

 

[Doctor Peloncito]

It sounds to me like your friend is afraid of committing herself to someone who will not be around much. If that is the case, I don't think she should waste her time nor should she waste the time of her boyfriend. Med school is a serious committment for all parties involved. If I started listing the sacrifices that my wife has to make I'd be typing all day. It comes down to whether she sees herself spending the rest of her life with this man. If so, she should tough it out. If not, she should move on before someone gets even more hurt later on.

on a side note, why are you playing messenger? does this friend have internet? or is it really you in disguise? You should remember that membership in this discussion board is free.

 

[allan120]

on a side note, why are you playing messenger? does this friend have internet? or is it really you in disguise? You should remember that membership in this discussion board is free.

I'm playing messenger because my friend does not spend much time on the web and I do. She did not want to bother signing up for an account when I already have one and check SDN every day. Anyway, I wanted to make sure my friend makes a very weighty decision with her eyes open, and all of your opinions help, thanks.