Matching a Year After a Significant Other

[U4iA]

Here's the situation. My girlfriend is a year ahead of me and we go to school in Ohio. We don't want to spend years of our lives away from each other for the sake of advancing our careers. But we are both interested in semi-competitive residencies. And oddly, we have very similar interests within medicine.

What are a few possible ways for us to be in the same location? The issue is that if we could leave Ohio for either coast, we would prefer it. I was thinking that one solution could be if she did a transition year here and then we tried to match together the following year. But she wouldn't have to go through the match would she?

My next question is: Is it possible for an intern to have any influence on the selection of the next years residents? I am asking this question because it is likely that we may decide to stay in Ohio (if it seems too difficult to be close elsewhere) and match in the same field. A side question is, would you want to be in the same residency program with your significant other?

Sorry for the silly questions. Any insights are appreciated since I don't know all that much about the process...
Thank a lot!

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[Winged Scapula]

What are a few possible ways for us to be in the same location? The issue is that if we could leave Ohio for either coast, we would prefer it. I was thinking that one solution could be if she did a transition year here and then we tried to match together the following year. But she wouldn't have to go through the match would she?

My next question is: Is it possible for an intern to have any influence on the selection of the next years residents? I am asking this question because it is likely that we may decide to stay in Ohio (if it seems too difficult to be close elsewhere) and match in the same field. A side question is, would you want to be in the same residency program with your significant other?

Sorry for the silly questions. Any insights are appreciated since I don't know all that much about the process...
Thank a lot!

A few ways to stay together...

1) she takes a year off and waits for you to go through a couples match
2) she does a prelim or TY and then goes through the match with you as above for a categorical position. Beware that many Prelim and TY spots are designated for those going onto Categorical positions in other specialties. Therefore, she might end up being obligated to apply for both at the same time (presuming her specialty requires a Prelim or TY intern year) or she end up being relegated to less than desirable positions. She WILL have to go through the match if she only does a Prelim or TY year in Ohio with you and doesn't have a Categorical or other position lined up for her 2nd year
3) she takes a position in a city or area with several programs in your desired specialty, thereby increasing your chances of matching into one of them the following year. One of you might have to commute but you're still together.
4) see how much of your 4th year you can do as away electives; you might find that with vacations and visiting electives, you can not only spend a fair bit of the year together but also get in an audition clerkship at her program for when you apply.

I would guess the amount of influence an intern had would:

a) depend on the program
b) depend on whether the intern was a Prelim or Categorical
c) depends on the intern - ie, if they weren't well liked, their influence would be rather slim
d) depends on how well the candidate is liked (ie, you)

For example, our interns don't interview candidates, but they do meet them and certainly can tell faculty and us senior residents what they think and it can influence us to some degree; the relationship (especially if the intern were well liked) would probably help your application and its not uncommon to find in a couples match that one is more qualified (that usually helps the less stellar of the two rather than hinders the more qualified, IMHO).

Finally, I liked having my SO in a DIFFERENT program - I was less self conscious (but it might have been nice to have him around sometimes) and it was easier to arrange vacations. Vacations were easier to arrange because we didn't have to deal with rules about the number of residents who could be off at the same time. If you too are going into different fields at the same hospital, it shouldn't be a problem. We have a few married residents here. If we had both been on the same service at the same time and maybe had a bad day at home, I imagine it could carry over to work!

 

[U4iA]

A few ways to stay together...

thanks a lot kimberli! your post is very helpful..