How important is it to get a 2BR in residency living with SO?

[Frogger27]

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Hey everyone,

How important is it to get a 2bedroom if you are living with a non-medical SO during residency? I will be beginning a surgical residency in the July. We live in the Midwest so the COL is not crazy, although the areas we are looking at are pricier than other parts of the city. Getting a 1bedroom vs 2bedroom would probably save ~200-400/month. My biggest concern is that my sleep schedule will be so much different than my SO and therefore will need a second bedroom, especially when I am on call. Are most of you living with a SO getting atleast a 2br?

 

[calivianya]

At least a two bedroom for sure!

I’m living in a two bedroom right now with my SO and it’s awful. We both need so much more space - if I’d known he was moving in, I would have reserved at least a three. I got the two just for myself.

If you don’t have much stuff, a two might be okay. But once you get two people with hobbies, stuff like musical instruments, workout equipment, etc, you’ll realize a two is tiny. I think our ideal is a four bedroom (or a three with a finished basement/bonus room), which is what I’m gonna be looking for after I match - a bedroom for each of us when we sleep different hours, a workout room, and a music/art room. 🤣

 

[stickgirl390]

I have a 2bd/2br right now in med school with my SO and we’re already planning on a 3bd/2br or larger for residency.

 

[longhaul3]

I don't think you'll need a second bedroom for sleeping apart unless it really bothers him/her. What specialty? Will you have a lot of home call? When I'm home with a pager it sucks but my wife and even my dog got used to it after only a few weeks early in my intern year.

I think you'd want the second bedroom for office/hobby space and/or kids if the time comes. The monthly savings would not matter to me personally unless it cuts into money for true essentials because you're looking at an order of magnitude salary increase after residency.

 

[Redpancreas]

Hey everyone,

How important is it to get a 2bedroom if you are living with a non-medical SO during residency? I will be beginning a surgical residency in the July. We live in the Midwest so the COL is not crazy, although the areas we are looking at are pricier than other parts of the city. Getting a 1bedroom vs 2bedroom would probably save ~200-400/month. My biggest concern is that my sleep schedule will be so much different than my SO and therefore will need a second bedroom, especially when I am on call. Are most of you living with a SO getting atleast a 2br?

No one will be able to answer this for you as every person sleeps differently. Some people’s sleep is better with a partner. Others actually notice their sleep gets worse with a partner. Also people are on a spectrum from light to deep sleepers and it’s hard to assess where you are until problems emerge. You only get one shot to make a good impression in residency. It’s important you start strong and so if you think your sleep will be affected with a shared bedroom then invest in the 2B2B for a year. See how it works and if you find it’s unnecessary you can downgrade next year. In the end it’s going to end up being $300-900/month extra off a 55-65K salary depending on location which is a dent...but it’s your sleep which isn’t something to cut corners on.

 

[sloop]

I’ve lived in a 1 bedroom in residency and it has been largely fine. With the pandemic, it became a bit annoying when my fiancé was home and I was doing telepsych stuff for long stretches of time, but I just wound up going into the hospital to work from my office during those times. Home call was infrequent enough that it wasn’t a significant issue.

I do imagine in some specialties with a lot of home call where you get paged frequently overnight, it might be worth it to have another bedroom. I also think that it might be more of a priority if you’re not in a specialty like psych where you get an office.

 

[Ho0v-man]

If you don’t have kids, you could just get a pullout couch for the call nights

 

[sloop]

If you don’t have kids, you could just get a pullout couch for the call nights

Yeah, I’ve contemplated just sleeping on my couch during home call if the pager was off the chains. Fortunately I’ve never really had such an awful home call. The worst I had was a night on consults when I had to give a few urgent recs in the middle of the night but didn’t have to actually go in. My fiancé is a pretty light sleeper but the nighttime interruptions have been infrequent enough that she just deals with it and has never actually requested that I sleep elsewhere.

I think this question is really personal preference and for most is going to depend on how often and how intense your home call is. If you’re doing frequent home call and the pager is going off all night every time you’re on call, that might make it more worthwhile to have another bedroom. On the other hand, if it was me in that situation I might just make the decision to sleep in the hospital because at that point I’m probably not even going to be that much more comfortable at home. That and with that volume of pages, there’s probably a decent likelihood that at least one of them is going to require me to come in anyway.

 

[bigindian4891]

My SO and I are doing a 2 bed 1 bath. We are having one of the rooms be a guest room with bed/hobby room. I will prob sleep in the guest room when I am on nights. Having 3 bedrooms didn't make sense for us, especially once you factor in the price.

 

[Redpancreas]

At least a two bedroom for sure!

I’m living in a two bedroom right now with my SO and it’s awful. We both need so much more space - if I’d known he was moving in, I would have reserved at least a three. I got the two just for myself.

If you don’t have much stuff, a two might be okay. But once you get two people with hobbies, stuff like musical instruments, workout equipment, etc, you’ll realize a two is tiny. I think our ideal is a four bedroom (or a three with a finished basement/bonus room), which is what I’m gonna be looking for after I match - a bedroom for each of us when we sleep different hours, a workout room, and a music/art room. 🤣

I have a 2bd/2br right now in med school with my SO and we’re already planning on a 3bd/2br or larger for residency.

I concur with @bigindian4891 in terms of limiting it to a 2BD and even 1 bathroom is doable if you two are intimate IMO especially if the non-physician isn't up at crazy hours. Are these really necessities for ya'll? What kind of dimensions are we talking per room? I have a power rack for barbell workouts and I have it set up in my room in addition to a mounted multiscreen desktop set up for remote EMR access/chart review, and then a walk in closet for my clothes with plenty of extra space such that my SO had brought some of her stuff and left it there. My roommate has his own mancave. Then there's all the living room space.

 

[calivianya]

I concur with @bigindian4891 in terms of limiting it to a 2BD and even 1 bathroom is doable if you two are intimate IMO especially if the non-physician isn't up at crazy hours. Are these really necessities for ya'll? What kind of dimensions are we talking per room? I have a power rack for barbell workouts and I have it set up in my room in addition to a mounted multiscreen desktop set up for remote EMR access/chart review, and then a walk in closet for my clothes with plenty of extra space such that my SO had brought some of her stuff and left it there. My roommate has his own mancave. Then there's all the living room space.

My current apartment is 1200 square feet. The master is okay - the actual bedroom space is maybe 14’x10’, not including two closets and the en suite. The apartment has a lot of wasted space, though - a couple wide hallways, too big a living room, and a huge, pretty unusable entryway for no reason. Could have easily had a third bedroom in here with some reconfiguring of the layout, and that would have been infinitely more helpful.

I’ve lived in smaller places before where a room had to do triple duty as a bedroom/office/workout room, and that just feels cluttered or college student-y if that makes sense. I was a working adult with my own place before med school and my SO is also a working adult. There’s no way he‘d be willing to be cramped up like that, either.

I do realize I am a college student again, but I just mentally can’t go back to living like one. It’s hard to give up space once you’ve had it as an adult. Props to the people who do.

 

[BunnyMan17]

We just signed for a place that's 2/2 at ~1250 sq feet, wife is doing gen surg and I'll be doing IM. Given the insane COL we definitely thought about a 1 bed. But we decided we really wanted that extra space so we can have somewhat seperate living and work/study spaces. If one of us is on nights my wife is light sleeper and will definitely need a seperate sleeping area. Intern year is going to be a beast and we want to come to home somewhere where we feel relaxed. A smaller/cluttered place, poor sleep. etc. just doesn't help with that.

 

[Lem0nz]

People asking you the wrong questions.

Are you home call or night float?

Lived with my wife in a 3bd/2br and it was huge and we never used the other 2 bedrooms or bathroom except for parties and family visiting.

If you’re night float or your call is in the hospital, which it usually is for general surgery (though not always) the space is not relevant at all unless you want it for something not sleep related (like family or workout, whatever).

Otherwise get some blackout curtains and you’ll be fine. Your SO just can’t, you know, live in the bedroom making a ton of noise when you’re post call on a Sunday or when you’re on night float.

As a few have said, for sleep, it’s not necessary at all in general surgery residency unless you’re doing home call. I won’t comment on home call because I never had to do it.

edit: worth saying there’s a ton of good general life/living advice here, just wasn’t specific to GS and your issue I think.

 

[deleted1100659]

Granted, im divorced but I did the whole one bedroom thing with my spouse and it was not fun. I would say from my own personal opinion, get a two bedroom and eat the cost. Youll want your own private space to decompress and that gives her a means of personal space too.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

I'm in a 1 br/1 bath now with my SO and it hasn't been an issue, but the plan is to buy a 2-3 bedroom place for residency (well, if we end up in the region we want). Mostly because if we end up in the right location we would probably stay there at least 5 years and would have kids at some point. I would likely prefer a 2 bedroom for space anyways, but we've done fine in our current space despite it being on the smaller side. I would say if it's not a huge financial thing, go for the 2.