Hey there! Congrats on your acceptance. I'm a fourth year, coasting through my last rotation, I matched into my top choice orthopedics program (dream specialty, amazing program, perfect location), life is good! I started DO school at 30 with a 1 year old and had a second kid during the summer between 2nd and 3rd year. Kids are now 4 and almost 2. Overall, this has been a good experience and I don't feel that I've missed out on a lot with the family, and I've done really well school wise, however it has been way harder and more stressful than I could ever have imagined! Med school is a rollercoaster, there are really brutal times where I wouln't see my kids much for a month, and then there's been really chill times where I only work half days a couple times a week. Wife didn't work 3rd and 4th years, we probably would have lost money with how expensive daycare is. I don't have too much time to type right now (hanging with the kiddos), so I've copied some posts of mine from over the years on the subject. It's kind of a lot and some may be repetitive, but should have some helpful advice for you. I feel really thankful that it has all worked out and that we've had a lot of help along the way. Good luck and I'm happy to answer more questions.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/well-my-wife-is-pregnant.986445/#post-13718418
"Hey Congratulations!! I am an OMS-I with a 1.5 year old son. First, I will say that being a dad has literally been the best experience of my life (and I've done a lot of really cool things in my life). The amazingness is beyond explanation.
There is already some good advice on this thread, and I'll add my $.02. First of all, being a good father while being successful in med school is very doable, although it takes effort. As said before, you have to prioritize your family and not let school consume your life. It would be sad to look back at your kid's early years and realize that you missed them because of school. Your wife will have to step up a lot and take care of the baby on days before an exam when you really have to study. I agree that it's very important to show your appreciation and encourage her to take free time to do fun things when you don't have to study and can take care of the baby.
On average, having a baby hasn't affected my school experience too much, but I do feel like it's made medical school a little bit harder (and sometimes I feel like medical school makes having a baby harder). It's really not bad though. When things get rough is when the baby (and therefore you and your wife) gets sick, which seems to be a lot, especially if they're at day care. That's when the sleep deprivation is most severe, you're sick more which makes studying harder, and you have to figure out who's gonna watch him while you're at school since he can't go to daycare while sick. Same goes for teething in terms of the sleep deprivation. It is good advice above to do your best to get your baby to sleep through the night. We failed on this and still have trouble with sleep, which makes things a bit harder on average. I just look at the sleep deprivation as training for residency.
To succeed in med school with a kid, time management is crucial. Since any time I'm not studying I want to spend with my family, I've had to be happy with less time doing my own hobbies and socializing with my new friends from school. This has not been a problem for me, but could be harder for some people. I still get out a few times a week to at least go trail running or mountain biking or whatever for a few hours, so I still get some time to do my own thing.
Perhaps the best advice on the subject that I received is this: You have to be flexible and accept that sometimes (but not always) your grades will be affected because of your family. There's been exams where I missed a few extra points due to an especially rough night before, study time missed when I have to help my wife take care of something with the kiddo, anatomy lab study sessions missed due to taking care of a sick baby while the wife is at work, etc. Likewise, there's many times when all I want to do is play with my son or watch a movie with my wife, but I have to go study for 10 hours straight instead. You can't be a perfectionist. You will have less time to study than your classmates without kids and you will laugh when they complain about how they don't have enough time to study. With that said, it's still very possible to do well in school with kids, and it seems like all the people with kids at my school do very well. I'm always in the top 25% of my classes and often times in the top 10%, and I get to hang out with my family a lot. For me, seeing my baby reminds me daily of why I want to crush school so I can provide a great life for him in a great location, which inspires me to work hard and do well. I hope this helps and I'm happy to answer any more questions about it. Good luck and enjoy the ride!"
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...l-school-with-a-family.1055020/#post-14906036
"To the OP, I am a 2nd year student at RVU in Colorado and my wife is a part-time teacher and we have a two year old and another kid on the way. Finances have been a hard part of medical school for us. She won't be working next year because as of now, much of her salary goes toward daycare expense, and it will be less stressful to have her at home when my schedule gets more rigid and longer hours away from home on rotations. We have maxed out our COA, with an add-on that the school allows for day care expense, this is about 80,000/yr (yikes!). Even on top of that we have borrowed a couple hundred/month from family. We could probably make it without family help if we drastically changed our lifestyle by moving to a one-bedroom apartment in the ghetto or something. Thankfully, that's not a step we're having to take. Finances have been easier the past few months with the medicaid expansion, since we now qualify for medicaid and we'll probably qualify for food stamps too. This seems to have eliminated our need for family help so far.
We pay 1500/month to rent a nice 3 bedroom town home in a nice neighborhood, have two old cars, and maintain a frugal but decent lifestyle. From my understanding, you cannot borrow any more school loans, private or not, above the COA. We have not used credit cards because we know that would be very bad for the long run. I love med school and overall I'm glad to be here, but I have my low moments where I wonder why I chose such a hard path to take with a family. Overall, family makes med school harder and med school makes having a family harder. Although, sometimes I think having a family has helped me perform really well because it gives me great motivation to succeed and it forces me to be and expert at time management and focused like a laser when studying.
Know your wife will have to step up and work hard too to take care of the kids and things around the house while you're studying for long hours. Be sure she has that expectation and that she is fully supportive of your med school goals, thankfully my wife is very supportive and that makes life much easier. As I said, I am very happy to be in school and I keep the positivity that it will all be worth it and I'll be able to pay off my loans without any trouble. It's important to go to a school that does not require attendance at all classes. My school is like this, so I have so far been able to strike a very nice balance between school and family by not going to any classes that are not required. Most weeks, I get to spend about as much time with them as when I was working full time, but it takes effort to do so! And there are weeks that are so full-on with school, that I don't spend much time with them. All of my personal hobbies have pretty much gone away for now. Not much social life or climbing, but it's okay! You just have to have the right attitude about it all and keep your priorities straight. I do go trail running or mountain biking about 2 times/week, which is good. You will laugh when your single classmates complain about how busy they are and how little freetime they have. Feel free to ask me any specific questions and good luck!"
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...sicians-is-it-worth-it.1178947/#post-17326897
"That's a reasonable question you're asking. I'm a married 4th year with two little kids, anxiously awaiting match day to see if I make it into ortho, with family med as my backup specialty. Is med school brutal and damn hard? for sure. Is it worth it? overall, yes. I had an awesome career beforehand, but also worked some pretty crappy jobs. I'm happy I've chosen this route, overall I've actually had a pretty enjoyable experience and don't feel like I've missed out on much in terms of family life. I have had to sacrifice pretty much all of my personal hobbies and social life, but that's okay, I know that stuff will come back again when I'm an attending. While parenthood makes school harder and vice versa, I feel that having kids has helped me do as well as I have because it helps me focus very well. When I get my relatively limited time to study compared to my peers, I STUDY. I don't goof off, I focus like a laser and get it done. I've enjoyed the material we've learned, which makes the studying feel a little more tolerable. Third and fourth years have been super fun overall, getting to talk to patients, do some procedures, feel a little closer to being a doctor. If I make it into ortho, I'll be so stoked, that's the coolest job in the world in my opinion.
Don't let other people's negativity deter you. I've noticed a large portion of my classmates are very neurotic and negative people who would probably be whiny and unhappy doing anything. However, med school is really harder than I ever imagined, and there have been plenty of times where I question what the hell I've done with my life. There's plenty of hardships besides the obvious difficulty of the course work that come with school that I did not anticipate that you really need to consider.
- finances. with a family, this has been a constant stressor. COA is calculated for single people. We live decent but frugally, but still have had to take max COA, and also borrow from family. Honestly, if we couldn't borrow from family, it just would not be possible financially. Of course the massive debt (probably will be around 400k) is pretty daunting.
- travelling for audition rotations for first half of fourth year. Being away from my wife and small kids, missing my youngest's first steps really sucked hard.
- being the clueless outsider in a new environment every month during rotations. It sucks feeling like a ******* most of the time and trying to fit in other people's work places.
- constant stress about match day. Especially now, it seriously takes everything I have to be present and not freak out with anxiety every day."
I'm sure there's others that I can't think of right now. Again, I'm happy to be here and feel grateful to have the opprotunity to be a doctor. Any specialty is far better than most jobs out there that people have to do every day. Now I just worry about what ortho residency will be like. With psych, you'll at least have a pretty chill residency. And it's a pretty cool field, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. Be sure to keep a good attitude and maintain perspective. Check out some of my past posts for more advice and thoughts on being a non-trad in med school. Good luck with it all!
