SO and I graduating residency 1 year apart, how difficult will it be to find a job together?

[idkididk]

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We want to eventually end up in Upstate NY, close to her family. My trajectory is to complete a surgical retina fellowship, her's is family med. How difficult will it be for us to find jobs in the same city/area, especially with a 1 year difference?

 

[gutonc]

You, being the super sub-specialist, will be the rate limiting factor on where you can both find jobs. There are PCP jobs everywhere. This is not necessarily the case for retinal surgery.

 

[Obnoxious Dad]

Upstate New York is beautiful. Unfortunately the pay, taxes and malpractice environment are awful. Places like Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Utica are economically depressed. The politicians in Albany have made investment in New York a fool's errand. One big problem for physicians is that New York State is, relative to the rest of the country, grossly over supplied with residency slots. You'll be racing to the bottom with all of the other docs who want to live there.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Upstate New York is beautiful. Unfortunately the pay, taxes and malpractice environment are awful. Places like Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Utica are economically depressed. The politicians in Albany have made investment in New York a fool's errand. One big problem for physicians is that New York State is, relative to the rest of the country, grossly over supplied with residency slots. You'll be racing to the bottom with all of the other docs who want to live there.

This commentary seems fairly unrelated to the OP's question. Clearly the job market is what it is because a number of smart, rational people decided that area is desirable, presumably for similar reasons to the OP.

OP, I'll echo what @gutonc said, your job market will likely drive the outcome for both of you. As soon as you start your ophtho residency, be very up front with your PD about your career goals and try to establish connections in the area early--you don't need to cold-email every practice in the area on day one, but it's not a bad idea to shake some hands at conferences. It's not unusual for practices to already have someone in mind by the time they post the job, so you might find opportunities by word of mouth that you wouldn't find otherwise. Finally, while I find the prior post somewhat unhelpful, decide early on what you will do if it turns out everyone is set on retina specialists at the moment in Upstate--would you rather expand your geographic area that you'd be willing to consider, or perhaps find a gig close to where you're finishing your fellowship and hang tight until something opens up where you're actually aiming for?

Once you have a short list of possibilities, she could also start trying to hone in on jobs in those areas. The jobs available for FM in upstate NY may not be amazing, but I'd be somewhat surprised if she's not able to find SOMETHING relatively close to you.

 

[RangerBob]

I agree with the above-your wife can literally find a job anywhere. Get your job lined up first and it’ll be easy for her to find something after.

Also, there’s nothing wrong with working a job for just a year. If your wife is the one that graduates first, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for her to find a job near your residency program so you two can stay together for the year.

Upstate NY is very beautiful-I almost took a job there but a job came up near my family in rural CA and we couldn’t pass it up, despite taxes/COL. At the end of the day, I’d live anywhere if it meant having family around. You and your loved ones only get one life.

 

[PTPoeny]

A lot of attending jobs will also interview people way in advance if there is a specific reason for them to be in the area. You guys can go looking for jobs at the same time every with the year difference in graduation.

 

[idkididk]

Thanks for the responses everyone. She'll be the one graduating before me. I didn't think it was appropriate to work somewhere for just a year, but that's probably the best idea right now.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Thanks for the responses everyone. She'll be the one graduating before me. I didn't think it was appropriate to work somewhere for just a year, but that's probably the best idea right now.

My wife was a year behind me (I'm FM) and that's exactly what we did - I worked for a year and then we moved.

It happens all the time, don't give it a second though.

 

[gutonc]

Thanks for the responses everyone. She'll be the one graduating before me. I didn't think it was appropriate to work somewhere for just a year, but that's probably the best idea right now.

While it's certainly nice to know that someone you hire is planning to be with you long-term, if I needed somebody now, thought they were good, and they were upfront that it was going to be a 1 year thing, I'd still probably be OK with it.

And since she's FM, the option for something like UC becomes really easy as well.

 

[idkididk]

While it's certainly nice to know that someone you hire is planning to be with you long-term, if I needed somebody now, thought they were good, and they were upfront that it was going to be a 1 year thing, I'd still probably be OK with it.

And since she's FM, the option for something like UC becomes really easy as well.

She’s fantastic and way smarter than me, sounds like we’ll be ok!

 

[TraumaLlamaMD]

She’s fantastic and way smarter than me, sounds like we’ll be ok!

My husband is FM, and while he wants to do primary care eventually, he took a 2 year urgent care job while I finished residency so we could get back on the same application cycle. He was up front with his job that he’d only be staying 2 years, and they were fine with it. Especially in urgent care or similar work, where you don’t build a patient panel in the same way as you do in primary care, short term jobs are very viable.

 

[hallowmann]

Multiple people from my program have taken positions, and its kind of implied that they probably won't stay. One is working UC while their SO is finishing fellowship. Another is doing OB while their SO is doing fellowship. Another is supplemental faculty while their SO is finishing residency. It seems to happen all the time.

 

[rokshana]

There is always the option of locums and depending on where you live she may not even need to go far away to work.

 

[Raryn]

Thanks for the responses everyone. She'll be the one graduating before me. I didn't think it was appropriate to work somewhere for just a year, but that's probably the best idea right now.

It's less than ideal in a specialty that requires you to build a panel of patients, but it should be fine. Locums work or UC work are both great options otherwise.