Is anyone else here in a long-distance relationship and worried about residency?

[medstudent87]

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What I mean is, do you worry whether you'll be able to get a residency spot near or at least closer to where he/she is located? Or whether there'll even be a decent program in the area for what you'd like to go into?

I'm MS-II and I'm doing the best I can, but I'm honestly a terrible med student. I only passed all my courses first year and failed neuroscience (which I've remediated since) and second year is proving to be even worse. I actually saw a psychiatrist last week and he thinks I might have ADD....today is my second day on Ritalin and its DEF helping me focus and retain more info, but I'm afraid it might be too late to get anything better than a pass in my courses (I'm currently nearly failing path, pharm and micro).

At this point, I'm praying that I can somehow demolish Step I and do well in my clinical years...but even then I feel like my piss-poor pre-clinical performance may overshadow everything else. The worst part is that I feel "stupid" that I can't do well in med school, even though I realize it doesn't take much intelligence at all to do well here. Its mostly pure memorization, which I was always terrible at. My strength was always in complex physics and mathematics problems that required THINKING and 0 memorization....

[Me and my boyfriend currently live 5 hours apart and visit about every couple of weeks. We're madly in love and as happy as can be given the situation, but even if we make it through my 3rd and 4th years, I fear for what comes after....I don't think I could keep doing long distance for THAT long..it sucks SO much 🙁


Edit: I guess I should mention that we're both dudes (yes, gays) and that if we were to remain together for the next 2.5 years and if he were a chick, I'd definitely propose to her...but our situation is a bit more difficult, so idk about that happening anytime soon. I'm only saying this so that you know we're very serious and I'm not just acting like a teenager who's in love for the first time....

 

[WellWornLad]

Is your boyfriend's situation less flexible than a contractually-binding national computerized matching system that coldly devours the rushed and subjective impressions of med students and residency program directors and s^&ts out the sum total of your next 3-8 years?

In other words: any reason he can't follow you instead of the other way around?

 

[medstudent87]

Is your boyfriend's situation less flexible than a contractually-binding national computerized matching system that coldly devours the rushed and subjective impressions of med students and residency program directors and s^&ts out the sum total of your next 3-8 years?

In other words: any reason he can't follow you instead of the other way around?

are a house and job valid reasons? its not a dead-end job...its a "real people" job where he can only go higher and higher haha


I guess there's no point in worrying about this now though. A lot can happen in 2.5 years, but I was just wondering if anyone else went through something similar

 

[2012mdc]

My gf and I go to the same med school but I am a year ahead. She constantly worries that she will not be able to follow me (my stats are stronger). I plan on doing my internship in the same city as my med school so when I'm a PGY1 and she's a MS4 but after that we may end up thousands of miles apart.

Not the ideal situation but I'm doing a competitive specialty so I can't really be too picky. I don't want to just ditch her but I also don't want to hold myself back either. There's no real fair way to decide who should sacrifice.

Only positive note is that she's currently interested in a much less competitive specialty so she still could match even if she only applied in my region.

 

[quirks]

Yeah, I worry. I'm in a long distance relationship, about a 6hr trip (flight) away. You just need to hope for the best and keep on at it. =/ Sorry, can't really offer advice, just company in our misery.

Does he have a job he can telecommute for occasionally? My bf and I are going to be relying on that so that we can actually see each other at all during my third year. For now I'm doing the majority of the visiting, he'll do the majority next year, and my fourth year I guess we'll mix it up.

 

[medstudent87]

Yeah, I worry. I'm in a long distance relationship, about a 6hr trip (flight) away. You just need to hope for the best and keep on at it. =/ Sorry, can't really offer advice, just company in our misery.

Does he have a job he can telecommute for occasionally? My bf and I are going to be relying on that so that we can actually see each other at all during my third year. For now I'm doing the majority of the visiting, he'll do the majority next year, and my fourth year I guess we'll mix it up.

nah, its a mon-fri 9-5 job...

 

[sunset823]

I can't comment on the relationship aspect, but can for your residency competitiveness and the ADD. First, it's dependent on where your bf lives - California is very different from Ohio (nothing against Ohio, it's where I grew up, but there are a lot of med schools/residencies and it's not a competitive place to match). It's also dependent on what you're interested in doing - psych is very different from derm or neurosurgery.

As to preclinical grades - it depends on where you go to school, but they don't matter at all. At my school, the only thing preclinical grades factor into (minorly) is AOA (which you, and I, are obviously not getting). Our class rank is solely based on Step 1 and NRMP shelf scores since we have branch campuses. And one remediation is not going to hurt you much for fields like IM, FM, possibly anesthesia or EM (especially if you explain the ADD).

As to your diagnosis, I know two med students who were diagnosed with ADD their second year. One is taking an LOA in order to get meds in check, the other one is getting some tutoring and making it through. There are many med students with ADD, and they graduate, pass the boards, and get residencies.

So in summary, your current grades have no impact on your ability to match residency near your significant other, but it's up to you to clean the slate for the more important stuff (step 1, third year, etc.). If you feel you need an LOA to do so, then take one, though if you are passing your classes, you'll be fine.

 

[medstudent87]

I can't comment on the relationship aspect, but can for your residency competitiveness and the ADD. First, it's dependent on where your bf lives - California is very different from Ohio (nothing against Ohio, it's where I grew up, but there are a lot of med schools/residencies and it's not a competitive place to match). It's also dependent on what you're interested in doing - psych is very different from derm or neurosurgery.

As to preclinical grades - it depends on where you go to school, but they don't matter at all. At my school, the only thing preclinical grades factor into (minorly) is AOA (which you, and I, are obviously not getting). Our class rank is solely based on Step 1 and NRMP shelf scores since we have branch campuses. And one remediation is not going to hurt you much for fields like IM, FM, possibly anesthesia or EM (especially if you explain the ADD).

As to your diagnosis, I know two med students who were diagnosed with ADD their second year. One is taking an LOA in order to get meds in check, the other one is getting some tutoring and making it through. There are many med students with ADD, and they graduate, pass the boards, and get residencies.

So in summary, your current grades have no impact on your ability to match residency near your significant other, but it's up to you to clean the slate for the more important stuff (step 1, third year, etc.). If you feel you need an LOA to do so, then take one, though if you are passing your classes, you'll be fine.

thanks, i needed that. I feel like every time I go onto this site to see what the buzz is, I only get depressed. Its as if only gunners post on here and, because of that, they make it seem like getting AOA and a 260 on Step I only requires moderate effort lol


Btw, is Connecticut a relatively hard place to get residency? (That's where he lives)

 

[lockjaw]

thanks, i needed that. I feel like every time
Btw, is Connecticut a relatively hard place to get residency? (That's where he lives)

Definitely depends on the specialty - a quick glance at the FREIDA database shows 13 internal medicine programs but only 2 peds programs in CT. But overall, it's unlikely to be as competitive as a state like California. And the nice thing about CT is that New England is small enough that programs in MA/RI/NYC would still probably be reasonably close (within 2 hours) of where your boyfriend lives. So you should hopefully have plenty of options.