Hawkeye MD said:
How long of a commute is that?
Depends on traffic.
I lived in Wheaton for two years (near the corner of Georgia and Randolph) while I was a student at USUHS. Traffic was just starting to pick up around 7-7:30; a typical morning commute to NNMC was about 25 minutes. If I left after 7:30, it was routinely 45+ minutes. I moved to Damascus before my 3rd year clerkships took me to WRAMC ... that was a 35 minute commute to NNMC if there was no traffic, and if I drove fast on 270 ... and at least 50 to get to WRAMC.
The basic problem with WRAMC is that there's no freeway access.
If you live outside the beltway, you're stuck driving to the beltway, enduring the beltway itself, and then getting off on Georgia Ave for an enjoyabe drive on a 3-lane road with lots of traffic lights.
If you're on a intern or resident's schedule, you'll miss the worst of the traffic. I'd guess that Olney - WRAMC would be about 30 minutes with no traffic, and upwards of an hour if you drove it during rush hour. Google guesses 27:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?O23E31E5C
The whole 270/355 corridor (Rockville - Germantown - Gaithersburg) was getting ridiculously expensive when we left in 2003. Traffic where 270 meets the beltway gets incredibly bad. It wasn't unusual for it to be backed up all the way past Rockville, and several times a month I'd get on at exit 16 and immediately slow to 5-10 mph. Again though, if you're driving in a 5 AM, you'll miss all that.
You might have better luck in that triangle of land north of the beltway, east of Georgia, and west of 95. There was a lot of undeveloped land in that area where you might find something reasonable.
If I was going to be working at WRAMC, I'd get on Georgia Ave and drive north until the houses became affordable. I'd also look up 95 a bit, and trust my awful intern/resident hours to keep me away from the awful traffic. I'd avoid the 270 corridor unless I was in an NCC program that put me at NNMC a significant amount of time.
Unless you can afford to drop $500K+ on a detached single family home, you're probably looking at a daily commute of 30-45+ minutes, at best.