Divorce rates for physicians

[ethanolabsolute]

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I hear that the divorce rate is very high for physicians. One doc told me that the divorce rate is especially high for female physicians. Does anyone have any stats on this? I am just curious about it.

 

[W222]

Not as high as people in med school communities would have you believe. I think they try and scare people. Plus nationaly its 50%, that is terrible to begin with.

 

[PookieGirl]

A friend of mine looked at surgical residencies and when he looked at Duke's, the program had a 100% divorce rate: all of the residents had either been divorced going into the program or had divorced once in it.

 

[W222]

My wife knows an ortho surgical resident at Duke and he and his wife are still happily married. Looks like that was BS.

 

[generic]

100% is pretty hard to believe...

let's hope it is BS

 

[Assembler]

A friend of mine looked at surgical residencies and when he looked at Duke's, the program had a 100% divorce rate: all of the residents had either been divorced going into the program or had divorced once in it.

****..that's pretty bad! It's seems awfully hard to believe though. I mean, surely at least some proportion must be able to carry on a normal marriage.

I think this is one of the reasons I do not want to go into surgery...unless its cosmetic surgery, because you can have a normal schedule that way. Though, you need some aesthetic skills for that, and I can't draw period. OK, now I'm just rambling...

I have no clue what the divorce rate is. Isn't the national average 60%? Or 50%? Either way, both are horrible.

 

[delchrys]

all i can tell you folks is that if you want to do a surgery residency at duke, please do yourself a favor and do a surgery rotation there. if you like the culture, then you'll love doing your residency. if you don't, then congrats on being a normal human being and you saved yourself 5 years of hell.

 

[skhichi]

my mom is a doctor, and my dad is not a professional (he runs a family business). I can tell you from personal experience that it is very hard for a person that is not a doctor or nurse or some other health professional to understand the rigors involved in becoming a physician. When my mom was doing her residency and she wasn't at home very often it was real hard for my dad to understand and they struggled mightily through those years. They still have trouble when it comes to her having calls and having to go into the hospital in the middle of the night. So, chose carefully

 

[Assembler]

You bring up a lot of good points, skhichi.

Ideally, I'd like to marry someone in the same profession as me. It makes it just that much easier to understand the difficulties and stress each person has to go through.

 

[hy2026]

well that's life right? You fall in love, things happen and you seperate and move on. It is unfortunate part of life, but life goes on.

 

[ethanolabsolute]

thanks for the input u guys, one thing I want to point out though, Im not asking this question because Im in a marriage or serious relationship. So theres no need to try and reassure me about anything.

 

[Mr hawkings]

My wife and i graduated college in 2002 (b4 we got married). shes a 3 year med student and i put everything off to go to grad school. I'm i'm applying so that my first year will be her final year, that way we're not both going through med school at the same time which would be stressful on the marriage. Also, i can learn from her experiences, not to mention, she can take over financially so i can go to school.

 

[Caesarsgrl]

I have done some reading on this. It's about 20% for doctors married to other doctors and about 10-12% for all other doctors. the divorce rate is not that high. Though From what I've read Psychiatry has one of the highest rates for feilds of medicine.

Take note that many people believe it's hard or impossible to have a family or a lasing relationship if you choose medicine as a career, however, most of this depends on the feild you choose, and the type of personality you have. Just like with everything else it's what you are willing to make of it. Everything worth anything requires hard work toward making it last or succeed.

 

[dnelsen]

My wife and i graduated college in 2002 (b4 we got married). shes a 3 year med student and i put everything off to go to grad school. I'm i'm applying so that my first year will be her final year, that way we're not both going through med school at the same time which would be stressful on the marriage. Also, i can learn from her experiences, not to mention, she can take over financially so i can go to school.

We have almost identical lives in this respect.

My wife is starting her third year of vet school, and I hope to start med school in 2005. We will have one year of overlap too...bring on them loans!!

Unfortunately vets don't make a lot of money so we may still have to do the loan thing even after she is done with school. Then again, your wife will only be making intern/resident $ so we are talking about 40k...

Good luck to you and your wife! 🙂

 

[uic1999]

A friend of mine interviewed at JHU for residency and the doctor he interviewed with BRAGGED about how high the divorce rate was at Hopkins. He was quite proud at how dedicated the residents were to medicine/Hopkins.

 

[PookieGirl]

My wife knows an ortho surgical resident at Duke and he and his wife are still happily married. Looks like that was BS.

it was several years ago.