Visualizing

I remember hearing about a story once where a professor took three groups of people and recorded how many free throws they could make.  He then had one group practice their free throws every day for 30 days.  The second group visualized making free throw shots every day for 30 days, and the last group did nothing.  After the 30 days the groups were once again tested on how many free throws they could make.  The last group didn't improve at all, the first group improved by 24% and the second group improved by 23%. 

I, as well as many others, have experienced the power of visualizing.  I know that I cope with things much better when I visualize it first.  From the moment my husband expressed interest in surgery I began visualizing what our life would be like, how I would react and cope with the new lifestyle.  Many situations I have visualized include:

What if I go into labor and my husband is stuck in surgery?
What kind of patience will I have to have when its been days since my husband has been home to help with the children?
How will I react when my husband finally is home but is too tired to help with anything because he's been on call all night?
What will I do if my car breaks down and my husband isn't available to help?
How will I cope with the unpredictability of every day?

Even with these visualizations and scenario practices it has still been difficult to cope with this change of lifestyle.  But as I prepare myself for these situations I am able to react much better when problems arise.

OMS wives, how have you dealt with and prepared for these type of situations?

Be Confident

A few years ago I was talking with my sister-in-law (whose husband is an investment banker) and asking her how she handles her husband being gone so much.  We talked about a lot of things, but one thing that has stuck with me is her telling me that you have to be confident in yourself.  About a month or so prior to our conversation she had an experience where the  pipes backed up in their kitchen and got icky drainage water everywhere (it happened a few times in a row actually).  It was a big pain, but she couldn't rely on her husband to help in any way.  She had to figure out how to handle and take care of the situation herself.  And you know what, she did and it was fine.

 

I consider myself fairly independent, but there are certain things that I feel like my husband is just better at handling so I usually refer them to him.  For example, fixing stuff.  I was raised to use tools and fix things myself, but I've learned through our marriage that my husband tends to be able to do it much faster than I can.  I find my time is better spent doing other things, so I let him handle the fixing. 

The other day we had a clogged tub.  Since we only have one tub and I couldn't give my son a bath, I was hoping my husband would have time to fix it fairly quickly.  But it was a week where he was on call almost every other night and I knew he would be tired.  So, one day while my son was watching a show, I looked up how to take apart the drain stop, I opened the drain, cleared it out and had the tub working in 10 minutes.  I was very proud of myself, not for just doing it, but doing it quickly.  A few nights ago our toilet paper holder came apart.  Its not like any kind we had before and I wasn't really sure how it worked, but I knew my husband had tweaked it in the past so when the weekend came I asked him to fix it.  He insisted that nothing needed to be tightened or twisted, but when I went to use it, it fell apart again.  I didn't want to bother him with it because I prefer that he either gets rest or spends time with our son when he can.  Looking closer I found the problem and, once again, had it fixed in just a few minutes. 

 

I'm not usually so quick at being handy, so I can't take all the credit for myself.  I know the Lord has quickened my understanding so I can take care of the things that need to be done.  They may sound like silly examples, but its these experiences that build confidence in myself and let me know that (with the Lords help) I can figure out and handle anything.

Learning from other's experiences

In deciding whether Oral Surgery Life was right for our family, we tried to look for examples around us of others that held a similar lifestyle as a surgeon.  We were fortunate to have my husband's brother and his family as a type of example. 

His brother chose to go into investment banking.  It is not uncommon for him to work 100-120 hour weeks.  He has a pager that he wears and can be called into work at any time to work on a deal.  For that reason, they never travel more than an hour away.  They can also never commit to anything because they never know if he is going to have to work or is going to get called into work. 

They had their third child not long after he began his job.  They were fortunate enough to find an apartment that was only 5 minutes from his work.  This allows them to spend some extra time together that they normally wouldn't have.  They will meet him for lunch on occasion and sometimes he can come home for dinner before he goes back to work. 

I talked to my sister-in-law many times about how she deals with their situation.  It is definitely a struggle for her.  She has her hands full all day and most of the night.  Sometimes her husband will come home just before bed and the kids will get riled up wanting to play with dad, which means a rough day following.  She will have her schedule of things to do, her husband will come home unexpected and things suddenly change. 

It was definitely a change of lifestyle, but they adjusted.  It is exhausting for their family and although not exactly the same as residency life, there were many similarities when I spoke with other surgery wives.  It helped me to see how hard that lifestyle can be, helped me to visualize the future to see if I could handle it, but most importantly, draw strength from my sister-in-laws experiences and advice. 

My hope is that, if you don't have someone like this in your life to draw on, that you can find what you need here on this blog to help your family make the right decision for you.

Interviews

We were told to expect to pay around $10,000 between applications fees and interviews.  This will vary based on how many programs you apply to and interview at, how far you have to travel as well as if you have any connections for flights or hotels (friends to stay with, free flights etc) during the interview process, but we personally found it to be fairly accurate.

One thing you can do to help your husband is to find hotels (or friends or family to stay with) and flights.  Some schools are supportive of their dental students pursuing specailties and will have no problem with them missing clinic or class time, but our school wasn't, so we had to be very careful about when we scheduled his flights.

Because my husband had so many interviews close together he was gone for 2 weeks straight.  Traveling through so many time zones so close together was rough on him.  Not to mention it was rough on our little boy having dad leave for a few days, be home for a few days only to leave again (our little boy is also extremely attached to his dad) so that is what was best for us.  Again, something you have to prepare yourself for.

Ask your husband to inform you about what each of the programs are like after he interviews there.  It will help you decide together which program is best for your family.  Your husband will be looking for different things than you.  He will want to know what the program focus is, how many residents they take, the personalities of residents and attendings, and how many hospitals the program services (which should matter to you too because the more travel your husband has the less time he is at home).  Those things should be important to you too because it will determine how happy your husband is in his residency.  The things you might be more interested in are things like: cost of living, how close you can live to his program (and thus how long of a commute it will be), schools, friends and family that live nearby, things to do nearby (parks, museums etc.) and the safety of the areas.  Ask your husband to try to pay attention to these things if they come up.  You might want to ask him to make connections with residents there too.  If there are any residents with wives that are willing to speak with you, it will give you a better idea of what that program will be like. 

The most important advice I received about this step of the process is:
DON'T GET ATTACHED TO ANY PROGRAMS

It's hard to do because you want to be informed so you can make a good decision about ranking the programs, but you don't have any control over where you go, so you don't want to be disappointed when you don't get into your favorite program. 

Just keep in mind all the pros and cons so, if you do match, you can refer to the pros list of the programs your husband gets into and start getting excited about your new home.

Applications

The application process will probably not be like anything you've done.

It will be a great help to your husband if you are able to assist him with the application process.  It is long, and complicated and, to be frank, a big pain.

Every program requires different information and sometimes in different forms.  There is conflicting information between their program website and the PASS site.  What we did was contact the specified person in each program we were applying to and verified what information they wanted (after comparing the two sources).  There was an OMFS wife that helped her husband apply the year before we did and put together a great spreadsheet to keep track of everything they had done through the application process.  She was kind enough to share the format with me (and YOU).  You can find it here.

I'm not sure what everyone else's experience was, but we applied to about 50 programs.  Being able to write down what we had to do for which program and what they required was so helpful. 

Different programs have different deadlines as well.  When we applied I think the soonest deadline was the beginning of September.  It is a long process to gather all the information, so you probably need to start around May or June.



Notes about spreadsheets:
Please copy and past the spreadsheet into your own document.  You will definitely need to make adjustments based on where you decide to apply.

It is not complete.  Just something to start with.  I've only put in the information for 4 year programs (and only some of them) because we only applied to 4 year programs. 

Programs will change from year to year so you'll have to verify information but I found it easy to adjust an existing document than to start from scratch. 

There are two spreadsheets when you follow the link.  One is the programs contact information and the other is to keep track of the application information.

If you have any questions you're welcome to email:
oralsurgerywives@gmail.com

Deciding to Apply

My husband started talking about Oral Surgery his second year of dental school.  He was concerned about the strain a residency would put on our family, but he also wasn't sure if he would be competitive enough to even get in.  Despite his concerns he didn't want to ruin his chances of getting in if he decided to go that route.  He knew Oral Surgery was extremely hard to get into and wanted to give himself the best possible chance, so he began getting involved in as many things as possible. 

He was already involved in running the schools Veteran's clinic but also got involved in research, indexing, ASDA, grading, and more.  All of this made him super busy which meant he wasn't around much.  It was hard for me, but it was a good introduction of what to expect during a residency and to see if I could handle it. 

Next he began his externships.  He did an externship during almost every week he had off during his entire third year (some schools are more supportive and will allow your husband to do this during the school year, but ours didn't).  He did an 80 hour emergency externship at the trauma center in town during his spring break.  He did a week long externship during one of his semester breaks in the spring and during his summer break he did two, week long externships in the Midwest and East coast.

All of this was very taxing on our family but it was good for us to evaluate and see if a residency was something my husband would love and something we would be willing to sacrifice together.  It was extremely important that we figured this out BEFORE we applied.

As we've gone through this process I've realized a few things.

1- Yes, residency life is hard, but everyone has hard things that go on in their life.  I've known people whose husbands work almost as many hours as a resident with no monetary reward to look forward to in the future.  If you decide residency life is right for you, remember: It's just 4-6 years and it will be worth it in the end.

2- Sacrifice is good.  M. Russell Ballard said, "Sacrifice is a demonstration of pure love...The principle of sacrifice should be taught in every Latter-day Saint home and should be practiced in many simple yet important ways. " (April, 1992).

As your husband sacrifices his time and energy to provide a good life for your family in the future and as you sacrifice your time and energy to allow your husband to focus on his job (hopefully something he loves), you are expressing pure love to one another and showing your children what pure love is. 

3- Even though residency life can be tough on the family and its not an ideal choice for a family, it HAS been done before.  Elder Russell M. Nelson is an internationally renowned surgeon and medical researcher. 

I found this link about Elder Nelson and loved what it said about his dedication to family:

"But no matter how involved Elder Nelson has been in important activities, his top concern has always been his family. His children say that he has always made it a priority to be at home when he is at home, and over the years, his devotion has repeatedly reassured them of their father’s love for them.  Even with a difficult schedule, he made time to establish a lasting relationship with each one."

4- Lastly.  Someone always has it harder.  I have a friend who is wonderful, has two young children under the age of 7 and has been a widow for almost two years.  Whenever I think my life is hard, I think of her and her challenges and more importantly, her strength.  Then I know I have strength to move forward.

Residency life isn't an easy road, but if you decide together that you want to pursue that route, you can do it and it will be worth it.

Connections

Right before we started the application process my husband and I were fortunate to talk to a couple that had just gotten into a program.  They came over for dinner and we chatted about the process they took and what to expect as well as any tips they had. 

 

Some couples may start the omfs process with more information readily available, but no one in our families are in the medical field and we felt completely blind to the process.  They were so helpful all along the way. And not just the first night we talked to them.  One thing the wife mentioned to me was to make as many connections as possible.  I have tried to do that and it has helped a lot! 

 

One thing I learned is that there are a lot of similarities with the programs, but that each program is unique.  The advice from one person may not apply to a program you get in to.  For me, I still appreciated knowing the different possibilities that our future could hold.  In my experience, every resident's wife was very willing to answer questions about their specific program.  It is a busy lifestyle though so it is good to give someone plenty of time to respond.

 

Have a list of questions ready about anything and everthing.  You can't know too much about the program and the area when you are deciding how to put together your rank list.

 

I hope you will take advantage of this blog to make some connections and ask questions you have.  And if you come across more connections, please feel free to direct them here if they want to particiapte.