What is the divorce rate for doctors?

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doctors are crazy thats why
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motherof4 said:
...spends hours and hours writing to his imaginary friends on the forums and his blog...
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Imaginary? :laugh:

Lady, we may be a lot of things, but imaginary isn't one of them. You might want to look up the definitions of "Virtual" and "Imaginary" and compare how they can be applied in this situation.
 
Eponym said:
Imaginary? :laugh:

Lady, we may be a lot of things, but imaginary isn't one of them. You might want to look up the definitions of "Virtual" and "Imaginary" and compare how they can be applied in this situation.
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I can't stop watching your avatar.

Even though its really morbid.
 
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Eponym said:
Imaginary? :laugh:

Lady, we may be a lot of things, but imaginary isn't one of them. You might want to look up the definitions of "Virtual" and "Imaginary" and compare how they can be applied in this situation.
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I understand the difference between virtual and imaginary. I understand there are real human beings who are not imaginary typing on this forum. However, the term "imaginary friends" was used to enphasize meaningless nature of developing "friendhips" on a computer forum when compared to the relationship say between a father and a yound child.
 
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motherof4 said:
I am Mrs Panda Bear. I have been researching what my husband has been posting on the forums. I thought he had stopped when our son was 1 year old. I was saddened when I first saw he had over 4,000 posts way back then and now I am troubled by his blog and recent discovery of almost 10,000 posts on this network.

My husband's training has not been so difficult. The long hours I have spent at home alone are now filled with reading, painting, saber fencing, hiking, talking with friends, antique shopping, gardening, mowing my own lawn, shopping for groceries, paying the bills, managing our debt, laundry, keeping up with the children's activities, advocating for my children, bow and arrow target practice, renovating part of my basement with my own two hands, stripping and refinishing my kitchen cabinets, polishing stones and refereeing and playing with my children.

The most unpleasant thing I have had to cope with is the lack of connection to my spouse. He is tired and worn out from the hospital, has very little to say about his day, complains about how messy our house is, and then spends hours and hours writing to his imaginary friends on the forums and his blog. We had at one time 5 dogs and 4 children. Our house is messy, wild and chaotic.

So here I am writing to his imaginary friends on the forum; expressing my side of the story. If I had the choice to do it over again, I would never have encouraged him to attend medical school. It has changed him greatly. He was happier in our marriage when he didn't like his job so much. The career change was my sacrifice to give him professional satisfaction. I believed in traditional marriage. I believed he would always be stong and meet my emotional needs; he pursued me for years and wrote me many letters in order to win me over. Now that he has the ultimate professional satisfaction of being a high paying EM doctor, I am not as valuable. He has all the adoration he can ever need from the staff at the hospital, his happy patients, and his forum and blog groupies. If he chooses not to resolve a conflict there is little to no recourse I have. Such a pitty.

And you all have loved my husband's writing at my and my children's expense. I acknowledge he is a great writer. His blog is a great piece of work with over 1,000,000 pages. However there was a cost. Those words didn't just sudenly appear. It has taken many long hours to entertain you all. Time he should have been focusing on learning relationship skills, parenting skills, dog training and our family.

Mrs Panda Bear
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I feel really voyeuristic and deflated after reading this. :( I loved Mr. Panda Bear's blog; am I a cold cold person that my instinct is to defend Mr. Panda Bear here?
 
commymommy said:
Physicians who were members of an academic honor society in medical school had a lower divorce rate, although there was no difference in divorce rates according to class rank.
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lolz, AOA status is correlated with lower divorce rates. Maybe because more of them go into lifestyle specialties which allows more time for spouse/family.
 
womp said:
I feel really voyeuristic and deflated after reading this. :( I loved Mr. Panda Bear's blog; am I a cold cold person that my instinct is to defend Mr. Panda Bear here?
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Maybe. I feel bad for reading Panda Bear's blog now. I just thought he whipped up that awesome writing in his spare time, hence the lack of posts on a super-regular basis. Some people are like that and I am jealous. But I am not jealous of a man who has become disconnected with his children. Kids do not stay cute forever...better enjoy them before they start resenting everything that you do for them. Note: This is not from personal experience but from observation.
 
cardiosurg said:
The ortho surg doctor that I worked with said that literally 60% of married couples while in his med school divorced. Another one told me that about half of his class divorced before the 3 yr. I can speak from experience. My ex-husbsand (who is a pharmacist) divorced me b/c he could not handle the hours when i was in pre-med!
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Pre-med?!?! :laugh:
 
This thread was first posted in 2001, came back in 2005, then again in 2009...and here we are- 2010.
 
All the statistics and correlations don't mean much. It really has to do with how you plan your life. If you love medicine, do it. Just make sure that you balance your life starting early on. Don't go to really hard core med schools, or do extreme specialties. It's not a coincidence that all the people from Doctor's diaries got divorced.

Honestly, I think having a supportive family will make you a better doctor than a Harvard education. My friends who has a 39 mcat, ivy league 4.0 wants to go to a state with his friends and girlfriend. That's a guy that's wise enough and knows enough about balance. He made an unpopular choice not to go to a top school. End result, he's going to be happier than the people on Doctor's Diaries.
 
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wow, really that old of a thread? :oops:
 
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Terrific, Terrific, post. Thanks a lot to all of you residents, fellows, and attendings for posting your experiences. I am going to applying to medical school next year and I have been wondering about this. This was truly eye opening.
 
womp said:
I feel really voyeuristic and deflated after reading this. :( I loved Mr. Panda Bear's blog; am I a cold cold person that my instinct is to defend Mr. Panda Bear here?
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Yes you are. Shame on the all of you for encouraging the forum/ blog addiction.

Medicine gave pandabear great professional satisfaction yet it cost him his family.

You can probably find panda bear on match.com....

former Mrs. Pandabear.
 
motherof4 said:
Yes you are. Shame on the all of you for encouraging the forum/ blog addiction.

Medicine gave pandabear great professional satisfaction yet it cost him his family.

You can probably find panda bear on match.com....

former Mrs. Pandabear.
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is dis person fer realz?
 
Is it really possible to have a balanced lifestyle if I am to become- let's say a heart/brain surgeon- and I want a happy family at the same time? I love the insights on this post even though it's like 10 years old.
 
Yeah, this is always something that has worried me a bit. My fiancé is going into psychology and will be a stay at home dad when our kids are very young, but I am constantly reminding him how hard it will be for a while, esp medical school and intern year. Not gonna lie, this concern definitely pushes me toward more lifestyle specialties as well as specialties that might be 'easier' to get into. We'll probably have children while I'm in medical school which might necessitate a bit of a sacrifice on my part as far as grades go. But I already know that my first priority will be to my family and that's something I just have to accept. It makes me very sad to read the posts from the former Mrs. PandaBear. As awesome as Panda's blog was, those lifestyle choices he made totally suck. Definitely a wake up call for prioritizing imo. And I think having a current thread that's ten years old is pretty awesome.
 
wow , i've been reading panda's blog since 2007 and i honestly can't believe what i'm reading...i'm so sorry, mrs panda bear about what you've had to go through.
 
motherof4 said:
Yes you are. Shame on the all of you for encouraging the forum/ blog addiction.

Medicine gave pandabear great professional satisfaction yet it cost him his family.

You can probably find panda bear on match.com....

former Mrs. Pandabear.
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www.xerq.net_20100412_211_Success-Kid-THIS-IS-EPIC-BUMP.jpg
 
Off topic, but what is the controversy behind the panda blogs? Someone care to explain please?
 
qwe7791 said:
Off topic, but what is the controversy behind the panda blogs? Someone care to explain please?
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I second this motion. New to SDN this year and his blog is too full of... well, he's written a LOT and I don't even know where to start to get the picture.
 
Yes you are. Shame on the all of you for encouraging the forum/ blog addiction.

Medicine gave pandabear great professional satisfaction yet it cost him his family.

You can probably find panda bear on match.com....

former Mrs. Pandabear.
Click to expand...

Not the longest bump i've seen but definitely one of the weirdest...
 
motherof4 said:
Yes you are. Shame on the all of you for encouraging the forum/ blog addiction.

Medicine gave pandabear great professional satisfaction yet it cost him his family.

You can probably find panda bear on match.com....

former Mrs. Pandabear.
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If you're that upset about his blog and this forum, then why are you still here, posting?

I don't feel bad about reading what he posts on the internet, nor will I ever.
 
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Plus im pretty sure that there was a lot more going on in the marriage than just the blog issue...lol at ppl taking sides on the marriage
 
tabascosauce said:
seconded. just as a rainbow would never be without the first rain, true love gains strength in adversity.
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If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow...

so how does the dual physician divorce rate compare to the overall divorce rate for physicians?
 
Lol. TS, you've really started something here.
 
Torr said:
Lol. TS, you've really started something here.
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TORR copy and paste our sig.

Join us. This is going to be a fantastic grassroots operation for SDN. WE ARE TIRED OF NEGATIVITY and WE ARE TAKING IT TO THE STREETS. I know you feel as we do. WE CAN DO IT
 
tabascosauce said:
ive never been more serious about anything in my entire life.
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screw it

Love is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you pay attention to other things, it will land gently on your shoulder.
 
tabascosauce said:
TORR copy and paste our sig.

Join us. This is going to be a fantastic grassroots operation for SDN. WE ARE TIRED OF NEGATIVITY and WE ARE TAKING IT TO THE STREETS. I know you feel as we do. WE CAN DO IT
Click to expand...

:) Alright TS. A one day only protest just for you!
 
only a day? we are in it to win it. torr toss off your oppressive chains and join us permanently. you have to live life sometime. grip it and rip it.

SHUT DAT BLIND MAN and get yo white ass from the window. dont you know we in a war here?

let me tell you about us. our purpose here is to protect our positive leaders from the negative onslaught of the pig who wishes to brutalize our positive leaders, rape our good ideas, and destroy our positive communities.
 
This is definitely one of the more bizarre threads I've come across in a while.
 
AbbyNormal said:
[YOUTUBE]Sbqv3MwwVd8[/YOUTUBE]
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POWER BUMP~!!!!

Interesting thread; I just think it has more to do with the dedication of the participants in the relationship... if Mr. Panda Bear was a mechanic, he would probably spend a lot of time working on his cars and also blog about cars.... probably has nothing to do with medicine.

People change with time, their profession plays some part in it... but it's in large part how they handle work/school/life balance that determines whether one's relationship status would come out unscathed..while embarking on this wonderful journey, one has a lot of opportunities to make the right decision - one wrong turn would not sever a relationship, it's usually a series of wrong turns that results in the dissolution of ones relationship. Good luck to us married folks in medical school.
 
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I am currently a 2 year medical student with a stay at home mom with 2kids.
And it seems like my specialty choices are already skewed for a lifestyle specialty because I want to spend more time with my family. I also think that panda dude being an em doc should have found time for family and his cute blog since em gives a lot of flexibility. Also why in the world would he make 4 kids that he does not want to see? This story seems very strange to me. I tend to side with his wife... As does the judicial system. Men have a tendency to take stay at home moms for granted. however after staying a few days with my kids I realize that I simply would not be able to do it full time.
Great respect to all the stay at home moms!
And my sincere hope that love and communication skills will save any relationship.
Just my 2cents.
 
Strange thread...I want to wait to have kids until I'm in residency personally.
 
I stumbled upon this thread and felt compelled to post a reply. I have been married for 4 years to a doctor wife. We have one kid. So far everything is good. Some of you talked about the stress residency/fellowship can place on relationships, but somehow those years weren't quite as bad for us. When she was in residency, I was in law school, I would often clean the house and cook dinner. After we had our daughter I took care of the baby as well for a while until I went to work and hired a nanny. It wasn't bad at all. Mrs. Panda Bear said she has 5 dogs and 4 kids, that may be more than any one person can handle. Maybe they should have got rid of the dogs and stopped at 2 kids. In fact, after I started on my biglaw job, our family income quadrupled, but we see each other less and have to outsource childcare to a nanny. I think we are less happy now than back then.
Now she told me it's hard to find good Endocrinology positions near LA (where we live) and we may have to relocate to smaller towns. I am not sure if I can find any work for hedge fund attorneys in pudunk America. While I was happy to play the stay at home dad role as a law student, I am not sure if I can take that now for the long term. I do hate my soulless law firm job and sometimes I feel an urge to use my wife's career as an excuse to flush my own down the toilet.
 
EMDrMoe said:
That's a great question, Drako. From personal experience (and the desire for it to be true!), physicians and med students I've talked to and know have a higher break-up/divorce rate when the spouse was not in a medical profession. Also, the physician couples we know show no signs of stoppin'. Each person understands the other's demands. I think physician divorces are prevalent because the spouse doesn't understand what the med student/resident/doc is going through. My husband an I hope to start together at MCO next fall, and that's the biggest reason for us going together.

I hope you come across some stats, though, I'd be interested to see them!
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+1. The best way to have a bulletproof marriage/life is to marry someone in the same field as you. You'll not only have similar interests but also have the ability to know just what to say/think/feel when he/she needs you.
 
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