How bad are Montana, Wyoming, etc

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karayaa

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Thinking about where I want to do residency, and where I would enjoy living (and potentially working afterwards), is there anyone from Montana/Wyoming/Idaho/Dakotas/Nebraska? What's it like to live out there? How bad (or good?) is it?
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I’m from Wyoming. It’s a decent place if you know what to expect. For example there are three towns with malls, often have to drive somewhere to fly for vacation or whatever, etc. There are some beautiful places though, and for the most part it’s pretty chill and people are very friendly. I’d be happy to answer any specific questions over PM!
 
Keep in mind it's not hard to stay so busy in med school or residency that you hardly even step outside let alone appreciate where you live besides shoveling your car out from under snow or hiding in a storm cellar and the like.

I'm a foodie, so that's the only thing that matter to me outside my house really, but beyond that, it really helps if you're willing to cultivate outdoorsman type hobbies, or you have a lot of homebody type hobbies. As long as I have internet and a tv for example, I'm good.
 
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If you're willing to develop outdoor hobbies, some of those places (more than a few others, though) can be really awesome to live in.

Keep in mind that med school and residency go by a lot faster than you think, and it's pretty easy to keep your head down and not even really notice how boring the place you live is.
 
Recently I've gotten really into survivalist type activities and whatnot.

If you like camping, backpacking, hiking, fishing, hunting, birdwatching, stargazing, sketching, photography, you could be in for a real treat. Some places gardening and rock climbing, too. I'm thinking of taking up the harmonica.

It's probably best to just consider what things you enjoy that aren't dependent on a big multicultural city nearby.

I like to read, write fiction, watch TV, cook. Even if you live in the middle of nowhere, these days if you're willing to spend money you can have just about any ingredient sent to you, and make your own favorite foods, ethnic dishes too. That's what I'd have had to do if I had moved to Oklahoma.

That and take back up the piano.

At the end of the day, between residency, housework, dinner, TV, and talking to friends/family on phone and social media, and SDN, I kept plenty busy in med school and residency, other activities aside.
 
Good or bad is always relative to your own goals and values. The same place can be paradise for one person and living hell for another. But at least in those places you mention, the cost of living is low.
 
Yeah, don't underestimate how much cost of living factors in. Being broke in a city like LA isn't that much better than being very comfortable in Montana.

For med school, and residency especially, it's good to think about commute and parking. It's also nice not to have things be too tight, to easily afford car repairs and other sort of nightmareish things coming up.

I'm known residents that could financially manage having a cheap maid once a week, which can really help.

A yard for their dog, a dogwalker. (I'm not big on having a dog in residency but some people manage).

Saving money can help you fly out and make the most of golden weekends and vacations, too.

Don't underestimate what living somewhere slow and cheap can do for your QOL for the time you're in residency.

Lastly, some of the programs in those sorts of locations are just more pleasant on a day to day basis for a lot of reasons.

I looked at one program in the middle of nowhere Michigan. You know what though? 3/4 of your weekends even starting in intern year were always golden, all year long for the whole residency. People got out early. No one had more than a 15 minute commute in no traffic. Almost everyone lived in a nice and affordable house, whether they rented or were buying. Despite many being married, given there wasn't much else around, the residents were all quite close and spent loads of time together having low key fun, and they had the time to do so.

Was it boring? Sure. Were they overworked and miserable for 3 years? No. Life is a series of trade offs.
 
Lastly, a lot of those residencies go out of their way to woo applicants, especially out of area ones. Often had nice benefits as far as food for the cafeteria, parking, gym, medical. Don't underestimate those perks in addition to a forgiving schedule cheap COL and little commute.

You also might find you have more of your pick of places if you apply humbly.
 
oHFygc

Awful who would want to live somewhere that looks like this? /s

Real answer from someone from a flyover-except-ski-season state: it’s beautiful, not crowded, low cost of living, not as “hopping” as your major metropolises but generally more to do than you’d think
 
To be fair the Dakotas and Nebraska have nothing on that. Idaho isn't as nice either. I would easily live in Wyoming or Montana for medical school or residency
 
I think it would probably be a great experience but remember that those places, specifically the mountain west, can feel VERY isolating. Some people love that aspect of being far removed from the rest of the world and living in a small community where everyone knows each other.

I have an attending who did exactly what you described - did residency in rural Wyoming. She loved it but after a year started to get cabin fever so she transferred to a larger city.

Also summers are gorgeous but winter can be downright dangerous. When it’s dark by 4 pm and you’re driving alone on those windy mountain roads that may not have been treated for ice since the last storm, you can get into trouble real quick.
 
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Feel free to send me a PM - have spent a decent amount of time in several of the states (some a lot more than others) you mentioned
 
Everyone I've ever met from Montana or Wyoming is trying to get back there eventually. BUT They're from there. Outsiders have a different experience unless they have Harrison Ford F-U money. "You ain't from around here, are ya?" is a real thing.
 
Crayola227 said:
Keep in mind it's not hard to stay so busy in med school or residency that you hardly even step outside let alone appreciate where you live besides shoveling your car out from under snow or hiding in a storm cellar and the like.
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This. Go where you're gonna get the best training. This chunk of your life is about git gud.
 
Fenderbaum said:
Nebraska is one great big farm.
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Can confirm. Thoroughly homogenous experience all the way across. Look at Google maps. I-80 is a laser straight snapped chalk line for an hour and a half from Grand Island to Lincoln. That ain't right.

Edit: I probably just jinxed myself and will end up in a residency there.
 
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Beautiful country, but winter can be like the Wall on Game of Thrones though. I love SD, it is a bit boring with the rolling fields but the Badlands and Black Hills are a sight behold when they rise out of nowhere. My friends that moved to Wyoming for work all want to go back there, and most of them have been based throughout the country and internationally. If your idea of heaven is the hustle-and-bustle of LA or NYC 24/7 it is probably not for you, but they are great... Except Nebraska, it's Cornlandia.
 
Crayola227 said:
Yeah, don't underestimate how much cost of living factors in. Being broke in a city like LA isn't that much better than being very comfortable in Montana.

For med school, and residency especially, it's good to think about commute and parking. It's also nice not to have things be too tight, to easily afford car repairs and other sort of nightmareish things coming up.

I'm known residents that could financially manage having a cheap maid once a week, which can really help.

A yard for their dog, a dogwalker. (I'm not big on having a dog in residency but some people manage).

Saving money can help you fly out and make the most of golden weekends and vacations, too.

Don't underestimate what living somewhere slow and cheap can do for your QOL for the time you're in residency.

Lastly, some of the programs in those sorts of locations are just more pleasant on a day to day basis for a lot of reasons.

I looked at one program in the middle of nowhere Michigan. You know what though? 3/4 of your weekends even starting in intern year were always golden, all year long for the whole residency. People got out early. No one had more than a 15 minute commute in no traffic. Almost everyone lived in a nice and affordable house, whether they rented or were buying. Despite many being married, given there wasn't much else around, the residents were all quite close and spent loads of time together having low key fun, and they had the time to do so.

Was it boring? Sure. Were they overworked and miserable for 3 years? No. Life is a series of trade offs.
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My God where is this program? I’m all in.
 
karayaa said:
Thinking about where I want to do residency, and where I would enjoy living (and potentially working afterwards), is there anyone from Montana/Wyoming/Idaho/Dakotas/Nebraska? What's it like to live out there? How bad (or good?) is it?
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Some great National Parks out there!

Winter will make a serious attempt kill you from Dec to Mar, though.
 
I went to no less than 11 National Parks and Monuments in a 10 day road trip this past June. The year before that it was probably closer to 20.

I bought a National Parks Geek sticker at a gift shop.
 
Crayola227 said:
I went to no less than 11 National Parks and Monuments in a 10 day road trip this past June. The year before that it was probably closer to 20.

I bought a National Parks Geek sticker at a gift shop.
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You've gone full Bartlett.
 
Wow, super helpful guys! That for all the ideas/suggestions. I grew up in a city of <100,000. I'm in a big city now for med school, and I know I would prefer to go somewhere smaller for residency and afterwards, but besides the location, the training opportunities will also play a big role.
 
As a minority although I like the outdoors feel of those places, I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable in that sort of area for a long period of time.
 
Born, raised, and went to undergrad and med school in that area. COL is definitely a perk and if you like outdoorsy stuff it can be great. Minimal commuting is also nice if that’s something that matters for you. I’m on the east coast now and have to commute and use public transportation daily and honestly don’t mind it (plus it can be pretty entertaining, such as the bat **** crazy lady yelling and swearing at strangers on the subway as type this), but being able to get to all of my rotation sites in 10min or less in med school even in the middle of winter definitely was nice. There’s a very high demand for physicians out there and compensation is much more generous than most of the rest of the country, so you’d have the benefit of networking and getting to know the different healthcare systems for a better sense of where to look for work at the end of residency, and the ins and outs of general contract negotiation specific to that area if you want to stay out there.

Snow and long winters can be a turn off for some people, but dealing with it my whole life I’m pretty indifferent towards it. However, the wind chill, and wind in general, absolutely suck. It’s not uncommon for the wind chill to get into the - 50s especially in flater areas like WY and the RRV, and for wind speeds of 20+mph in Spring and Summer which makes riding a bike anywhere (or just being outside) just awful. Also, it is a VERY red part of the country which may or may not be an issue depending on your political views and how closely you follow politics. The area is also devoid of cultural things and has minimal selection and variety for decent ethnic cuisine. People out there tend to be very passive aggressive and gossipy - I honestly view “Minnesota/Midwest Nice” as an awful trait and don’t get why people out there view it as something positive. Lastly, I don’t know what field you’re planning on applying to, but I can’t speak very highly of a number of residency programs out there. You’ll primarily be exposed to bread and butter cases with most of the more interesting and complicated pathology being sent to, and managed long term by, UofMN, Mayo, Denver, and Iowa. And also, there are minimal teaching opportunities as a resident.

I lived there for 32 years and personally Eastern MN is about as close as I would go if I ever were to decide to return to anywhere near that area. And if I went further West it would be either OR or WA. Either way I’ll be keeping my distance. Feel free to PM me as well if you want more specifics.
 
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I’ve lived in Omaha and I feel like for a smaller city it has a pretty decent amount of diversity, food choices and museums/things to do. I really liked it but one of the main things holding me back from moving there again is limitations (time/cost wise) on international travel since I really love to do that and it’s easier near/on the coasts.
 
Crayola227 said:
To be fair the Dakotas and Nebraska have nothing on that. Idaho isn't as nice either. I would easily live in Wyoming or Montana for medical school or residency
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What the hell are you talking about? There’s a reason that Idaho is the fastest growing state in the union. It’s pleasant as ****.
 
Goro said:
Some great National Parks out there!

Winter will make a serious attempt kill you from Dec to Mar, though.
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Can confirm. Sometimes December to Mid-May in Wyoming😀 .
 
UWIdahoan said:
What the hell are you talking about? There’s a reason that Idaho is the fastest growing state in the union. It’s pleasant as ****.
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eh, when I was there it was a lot of high desert that I didn't really love, and it has a real problem with tweakers. Not that different from Eastern OR or WA in a few regards. It gets hotter though, and to my knowledge doesn't have as good of skiing that OR does.

I'd take Idaho over any midwestern state. I'd group it with Montana and WY, not the Dakotas and Nebraska.
 
You ask if those states are "good or bad" which is hard to answer without knowing your interests. I've lived in Montana, SD and Nebraska, but I grew up and spent most of my life in the southeast, so I can give you a perspective of what it is like to move to those places as an "outsider".

First, the states you have lumped together are not all the same, and even regions in those states differ greatly, so I'll give you my opinion on each area that I know about.

I spent the most time in Montana so I'll start with that. I would 100% live there again. It's beautiful, less populated and great for outdoorsy stuff, and Mountains galore. Missoula/Bozeman are great medium sized college towns that are awesome to live in at any age but especially while young. If you like to ski, both these towns are great (Bozeman best for skiing), and there is stuff to do in the towns because of the colleges (though obviously not NYC or LA level type stuff). Bozeman is pretty close to Yellowstone too. Great craft beer in both Missoula/Bozeman. I thought Missoula had better food/beer selection though. Whitefish/Kalispell is another medium sized town area, near Glacier National Park and with great skiing, but not a college type town. That's western Montana. Eastern Montana is more like the Dakotas (lots of flat spaces). The big city in Eastern Montana is Billings. I wasn't a huge fan of Billings/Eastern Montana (though haven't spent a lot of time there tbh), but I really like Mountains.

Montana is cold as **** though in the winter and the winter lasts a long time (summers are nice and do get hot though!), so if you don't like the cold/snow it might not be the place for you. The one thing I really didn't like about living in Montana was the lack of a major airport anywhere nearby and how expensive and difficult it was to travel in and out of. By difficult I mean I had to take 3 connecting flights/a whole day/$1000 (or drive 3-5 hours to another airport sometimes to get a better price) in order to visit family.

I'll admit I'm not as familiar with the Dakotas (lived there as a preschooler), but they are pretty flat (sorry I'm just really partial to mountains). The badlands are cool. Probably best to ask someone else about those states.

Nebraska has Omaha and Lincoln which are nice little cities, but you won't have the outdoorsy type stuff in these areas so much. Omaha has decent food diversity for its size, a nice zoo, and more of a city feel. Lincoln more of a college town and has the football/beer. Also, more flatness. Nebraska would be much easier to fly in/out of and while it's definitely cold in the winter, winter doesn't last as long as it does in Montana.


If you are seriously thinking about this why don't you visit a couple of those places. If I were you, I would consider Idaho as well. Btw, lots of people are saying cost of living, and while that is true if you live out in the country, if you live in the more "populated"/beautiful areas in those states cost of living isn't super cheap (similar to a smaller/less desirable city in my experience), which if you're doing residency it would almost certainly be in the more populated areas (at least for the northwestern states, Nebraska might be different). I was actually able to find cheaper housing in Omaha than in Montana.




TL;DR? Check out Bozeman, Montana or Omaha, Nebraska
 
Vrachika said:
I'll admit I'm not as familiar with the Dakotas (lived there as a preschooler), but they are pretty flat (sorry I'm just really partial to mountains). The badlands are cool. Probably best to ask someone else about those states.
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No need to apologize. They suck 100%. Badlands are awesome though, and the ND ones and SD ones are very different, so it’s worth checking out both of them. There’s just nothing around them. The Black Hills are also solid, and I know a number of physicians who have vacation homes there.

Vrachika said:
TL;DR? Check out Bozeman, Montana or Omaha, Nebraska
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I would honestly recommend doing residency elsewhere, but if this is the area you hope to practice in, MT, ID, and Omaha are the best areas to look at.
 
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Crayola227 said:
To be fair the Dakotas and Nebraska have nothing on that. Idaho isn't as nice either. I would easily live in Wyoming or Montana for medical school or residency
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UWIdahoan said:
What the hell are you talking about? There’s a reason that Idaho is the fastest growing state in the union. It’s pleasant as ****.
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Idaho is amazing. There's hardly a place in the state where you can't see mountains. I don't think you can say the same thing about eastern Montana.

Sent from my SM-G930V using SDN mobile
 
holdthemayo said:
Sure, but to be fair:

Wyoming:
54d2498f7a410.image.jpg


Montana:

FB_03.jpg



They are some big states. I would live on the western side of either, you couldn't pay me enough to live in the east. Of course, one person's heaven is another person's hell.
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And WY has a town named Lusk. Who the **** would name a town Lusk? IDK why but that has always bothered me.
 
As others have said, it's a very personal preference. I grew up in western ND and spent a good portion of my adult life in MN, now back near home again for family reasons.

While most people don't think of North Dakota as being scenic, it can be if you know where to look. Photography became a hobby of mine from high school on and I can tell you that there's no better place to shoot sunset photos or storm shots.

IMG_0965.JPG



IMG_0967.JPG



and if you're into hunting and fishing, it's a really great place to do that.

IMG_0966.JPG


(all photos are previously published and protected by copyright)
 
North Dakota

General Pro's
Nice outdoor places
Easy to get away from it all (i like a break from people and can achieve that in 5-10 min drive)
Low cost of living outside oil boom country
Nice summers, lots of lake days
Lot of friendly, hardworking people

Healthcare Pro's
Great wage to COL ratio
Often good opportunities to build programs or lead things or be the big specialist in town
Still a lot of old school polite and grateful patients (farmer type folks)
Smaller communities really rally together when needed (tornado hit Watford City ND July 10th, rural critical access hospital with 9 rm ED managed receiving 28 injured (9 severe) in 45 min span. Over 125 people displaced, community had them fed, clothed, and into temporary housing in less than a week, despite an oil industry induced housing shortage there)
Lot's of community pride
safe places to raise kids
strong schools a lot of places
Everybody knows everybody in the smaller towns

Con's
Everybody knows everybody in the smaller towns 😛
It's frickin cold and miserable in winter and it drags on
very conservative place
can have lack of diversity in more rural places (mix of pretty accepting folks and folks very prejudiced against "outsiders")
lack of resources available in bigger places, grocery choices here need serious help
Did I mention winter sucks

Healthcare con's
Shortage of qualified staff so some places rely heavily on travelers or need bodies so refuse to fire ppl who are dangerous or incompetent
lack of healthcare resources (especially mental health ) and specialty services, or distance
 
wholeheartedly said:
lack of healthcare resources (especially mental health )
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And yet the state government perpetually acknowledges this while simultaneously cutting the budgets allocated to the department of human services and department of corrections and rehabilitation (both of which are grossly underfunded, and their funding comes from the same allocated pool, with the DCR receiving a larger chunk and creating considerable animosity between the two despite largely serving the same population, and the animosity ultimately results in even poorer care for pts...) every biennium, and puts up considerable roadblocks for MAT despite significant CD issues in ND. But I’m not bitter or anything...
 
Raney Schauer said:
LMGTFY

Ever seen Deadwood?

Lusk, Wyoming - Wikipedia
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“The town of Lusk is known for being the county seat of the least populated county in the least populated state in the US. In comparison, the county is approximately twice the size of the state of Rhode Island, with only 1/500 of the population”

Regardless of it being named after someone, there’s just something not right about a town named “Lusk”. And with the fact above it’s just adding insult to injury.
 
Taddy Mason said:
And yet the state government perpetually acknowledges this while simultaneously cutting the budgets allocated to the department of human services and department of corrections and rehabilitation (both of which are grossly underfunded, and their funding comes from the same allocated pool, with the DCR receiving a larger chunk and creating considerable animosity between the two despite largely serving the same population, and the animosity ultimately results in even poorer care for pts...) every biennium, and puts up considerable roadblocks for MAT despite significant CD issues in ND. But I’m not bitter or anything...
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I just liked how the non-oil producing counties got a nice chunk of change from the oil producing counties, while the oil producing counties really needed some of those funds for critical infrastructure to deal with the massive population explosion. i'm all for sharing, but that crap went into sketchy territory. not that the oil producing counties have managed the money well either...
 
jdh71 said:
I can't even . . .
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apparently I've only driven through and camped in the ass section with a lot tweakers

I had a really scary experience at a truck stop with some, which is when I started reading about what a problem it is

which is fine, it's a real problem in WA and OR too, which I don't consider total ass states
 
OK, jeez, I apologize for hating on Idaho. I can't say I'm an afficionado, but I've been to enough of the state I guess to say, stay out of the ass section. I didn't know it had a nice section. One of my best friends lives in the ass section, and I used to go visit my ex's grandparents out there too.
 
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