Med school singles/couples

[Willy38]

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Just wanted to get an idea from people on here what the culture at med school is like. Are there lots of married people, couples with children, singles?

 

[Davida]

I suspect this is heavily dependent on the individual medical school.

All the schools I'm considering are known for being "non-traditional friendly," and seem to have a high proportion of coupled/married students. So if that's what you're looking for, those schools certainly exist.

 

[KinesiologyNerd]

I can think of a few people in my class who are married/engaged. Two classmates' wives have given birth in recent weeks. There's maybe 10 couples within the class or with M2s.

 

[McMeowerson]

I think that, like most graduate programs, there's a good amount of married people and those in serious relationships. It tends to just come with age...but there will also be plenty of single people, too.

 

[Ismet]

3 people in my class have kids. Several are married, no kids, maybe 5-ish? Lots are engaged or in an extremely committed relationship. There's also like 10+ couples within the class. But I'd say around half of the class is single.

 

[tantacles]

5-6 students in my class have children, and a handful more are married. Many others are in long term relationships, but the majority are single.

 

[mvenus929]

MS1: Small number married--maybe like 2-3? 2 people had kids.
MS2: Several of the people in long-term relationships at the start of med school got married over the summer. Like 5-10 of them.
MS3: Three more babies, one with someone who already had one.
MS4: Another baby, and probably a dozen or more marriages, particularly among those who got together during med school. Still a stable single contingent.

 

[Geekchick921]

As others have said, it varies by the school.

Most of my class is traditional students (MAYBE took a year off between UG and med school). Many of us took multiple years off between UG and matriculating. We have a decent portion of people between 30 and 35 and about 3 people that are 35 and older.

A lot of the more traditional students are single or dating. Some people started med school with long-term partners and have gotten engaged/married (some others split up) and some of us (myself included) started medical school married.

Some of us started med school with kids or have had kids during the last 3 years. I can think of 7 people in my class with kids (myself included) off the top of my head but I'm sure there are more. I am the only female student in my class to give birth during medical school (2 months after we started school, lulz), but one of my classmates is pregnant now and a handful of my male classmates have had babies since we started. Two of my older classmates have young teenagers.

 

[eefen]

I think about 10 people in my class are married. Several others are in long-term/serious relationships. Two have gotten engaged since school started. Three had kids already, and three are expecting (including myself...well, my wife, anyway...). Most are single.

 

[graviton]

All the hotties are in a serious relationship or married🙁

 

[dancingmate]

All the hotties are in a serious relationship or married🙁

Hope not. Looking to find my SO in med school 😉

 

[NickNaylor]

Our class has quite a few non-trads, so the average age when we matriculated was probably somewhere in the 23-24. There were several married students - I'd say 5-10 (out of 88), a few that were engaged, and a few that were in "serious relationships." Of note, most of those in "serious relationships" eventually got out of them over the course of MS1.

Most people were single. There's been some intra-class dating, but not as much as I had expected. I'd say most people have remained single as well, with some exceptions.

 

[KinesiologyNerd]

Hope not. Looking to find my SO in med school 😉

The best part about dating within the class is trying to keep it on the DL. It's not easy, and once the first couple is public a bunch of others pop up. Lots of juicy gossip haha

 

[graviton]

Hope not. Looking to find my SO in med school 😉

I'm sure you'll get lucky😀

 

[studentp0x]

What happens if you get into a serious relationship during med school then you both (likely) get into different places for residency?

 

[kyamh]

What happens if you get into a serious relationship during med school then you both (likely) get into different places for residency?

Exactly as you would imagine most other situations.

1. the couple would have done couple's matching to get into the same residency so this wouldn't be an issue
2. the couple breaks up
3. the couple does long distance until one/both are done with residency and then they try to work in the same place
4. one member of the couple tries to match close to their SO during the next round

 

[KinesiologyNerd]

1. the couple would have done couple's matching to get into the same residency so this wouldn't be an issue

Couples match isn't necessarily (and probably usually isn't) used for the same program. Same institution/city/geographical area more likely.

 

[mvenus929]

Couples match isn't necessarily (and probably usually isn't) used for the same program. Same institution/city/geographical area more likely.

Yes, most couples aren't going into the same specialty. Of the 14 people I know couples matching, only one of them is a same specialty pair (Family medicine). I know a Peds-Uro (which isn't technically a couples match), Peds-IM, IM-Surgery, EM-Surgery, IM-FM, FM-FM and Peds-something (SOAPed, and I'm unsure what he SOAPed into).

The FM-FM couple did have some matches where they'd be at different programs within the same city, but most of them were same-program pairs (because there was only one program in that area).

 

[MDforMee]

What happens if you get into a serious relationship during med school then you both (likely) get into different places for residency?

You don't have kids and agree to break up beforehand

 

[xsci9x]

Exactly as you would imagine most other situations.

1. the couple would have done couple's matching to get into the same residency so this wouldn't be an issue
2. the couple breaks up
3. the couple does long distance until one/both are done with residency and then they try to work in the same place
4. one member of the couple tries to match close to their SO during the next round

Only practical option is the first one. 4 maybe too but long distance is doomed to fail.

 

[Mt Kilimanjaro]

What happens if you get into a serious relationship during med school then you both (likely) get into different places for residency?

You would probably do couples match. If that doesn't work, you spend part or all of your residency apart. This is actually not that uncommon.

 

[alamo4]

As noted it depends a lot on the school. Schools with a religious affiliation seem to have more families and married couples, or at least that is my impression; I haven't seen statistics.

Having more nontrads and older students is likely to track as well.