Keeping it together

[brightness]

Hi there!
My boyfriend is a medical school wannabe and I am a psychology PhD wannabe. We are very close to one another and have never intended to leave each other throughout our education, both of us realizing the potential sacrifices we will have to make.
When matching into an internship/residency as an MD/DO...what is that process like? We have been trying to sort of figure out how difficult it will be for us to find an MD/DO and a PHD program where we both get in that are reasonably close to one another. Although I think we can do this aspect of it, I am not so sure about the residency or internship years for an MD/DO. What is this process like? How easy is it for the resident or intern or whatever to remain in a certain geographic area. I have considered doing nursing or becoming an SLP instead of getting a PhD in order to stay with him, which I feel like of lame about. This is important to me, though.
Thank you for your help!

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[TMZ2007]

Do you want to start a PhD program at the same time he starts a MD program? How long does he have before he would start med school? Can you finish the PhD before he starts the MD??

If he gets into med school and you get into a PhD program in the same city and start your programs at the same time will you be done with your training before he graduates from med school?? Med school is 4 years so....

 

[brightness]

Well, if I bust my bootay in my PhD program, then I would finished with it in 4 years and then trying to place in an APA accredited internship for one year. Meanwhile, he will be trying to get placed in a residency *I think* which is more of a long term committment that the internship is.

 

[randomedstudent]

This will be highly dependent upon what specialty he chooses to go into and what region you are talking about. Hopefully he will choose internal medicine for which there is a multitude of positions. So as long as the region you are hoping to stay in has several med schools near by or community programs it is definitely doable to limit yourself geographically and match successfully. For example, NYC alone probably has dozens of IM programs each with a dozen or more spots each year. Good odds. But, if he ends up wanting to do pathology or ophtho or derm or something with vastly fewer positions it will be much more difficult to stay within a specific region. Or if you are hoping to stay in an area that only has one or two programs nearby, again, much more difficult. So to sum up, it is certainly possible to match into a residency within a specific geographic area, but it can be difficult depending on specialty and region.

I say go for the PhD and if you aren't finished by the time he is finished with med school he can either delay residency by a year or two (this is not uncommon as many people decide to get other degrees or just take a little time off) or he can try to match where he did med school or another nearby program if you are in a city with multiple programs.