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.
No comments:
Post a Comment