How to date a med student

Fox News wrote an article "How to Date a Med Student" A new friend of mine (also dating a med student here) shared this article with me and we got a few laughs out of it. Some of these are VERY true!

1. Don't expect to see them. Ever.
2. Accept the fact they will have many affairs. With their books.

3. Learn to hide your “ew, gross” reactions when they tell you all the stuff you never wanted to know about your bodily functions.

4. Support them when they come home after each test, upset because they failed—and gently remind them after they get their well above passing grade how unnecessary the “I’m going to fail out of medical school and never become an MD” dramatics are.
5. Each week they will have a new illness. Some will be extremely rare, others will be more mundane. Doesn’t matter. They will be certain they have it (no second opinions necessary.) Med school can, and will, turn even the sanest into a hypochondriac. Date them for long enough, and you’ll become one too.

6. There will be weeks you'll forget you even have a boyfriend—friends will ask how he is and you'll say, “What? Who? Oh....right. He's well...I think.”

7. They'll make you hyper-aware that germs are everywhere and on everything. Even though you used to walk into your home with your shoes on, and sit on your bed in the same clothes you just wore while riding the subway, or sat on a public bench in, you'll become far too disgusted to ever do it again. Believe me, it's going to get bad...you'll watch yourself transform into the anal retentive person you swore you'd never become. And when you witness others perform these same acts that, before you began dating your med student, you spent your entire life doing too, you'll wince and wonder, “Ew! How can they do that? Don't they know how many germs and bacteria they're spreading??!”

8. Romantic date = Chinese take-out in front of the TV on their 10 minute study break.

9. A vacation together consists of a trip down the street to Walgreens for new highlighters and printer paper.

10. Their study habits will make you feel like a complete slacker. For them, hitting the books 8-to-10 hours a day is not uncommon, nor difficult. You'll wonder how you ever managed to pass school on your meager one hour of studying per night.

11. They're expected to know everything. Everything! The name of the 8 billion-lettered, German sounding cell that lives in the depths of your inner ear, the technical term for the “no one's ever heard of this disease” disease that exists only on one foot of the Southern tip of the African continent. But ask them if your knee is swollen, or what you should do to tame your mucous-filled cough, or why the heck your head feels like someone's been drilling through it for oil for two weeks straight, and they won't have a clue.

12. “My brain's filled with so much information, I can't be expected to remember THAT!" will be the standard excuse for forgetting anniversaries, birthdays, and, if you get this far, probably the birth of your first-born.

13. You'll need friends with unending patience who pretend never to get sick of listening to your endless venting and complaints. Or, you'll need to pay a therapist who will pretend never to get sick of listening to your endless venting and complaints.

Roles of the wife

She supplies the missing pieces of her husband's puzzle. What the husband begins, the wife finishes and refines. Man provides the raw materials and the woman polishes them.

One illustration another wife in our group made was the husband builds the house for the family, but the woman goes in and makes it the home. Together they build it to provide and protect their family. One is not a home without the other.

Marriage is filled with lots of 'help' - as in we are constantly helping eachother. I bring him dinner while he's studying late at the library and he always helps me get things down in our closet that I can't reach. :) We are in this together and are partners through life. When I say that, I stop and think "what if I was married to someone who I didn't love or respect? What if I was asked to pick up the extra slack around the house for a stranger or someone who I didn't love? Man, it's a good thing I love him!" If I was married to someone who I didn't respect, I would be one bitter lady doing my share of the 'helping.' I can't imagine helping anyone else.

Created differently

We just recently finished a study in our small group. We did it over a study called Life 101 - Marriage Edition by Dr. Bob and Ann Livesay at Pine Cove. We have always been fascinated about marriage - the roles a husband and wife play. Throughout college we've read Wild at Heart, Captivating, Love and Respect. God made everything on purpose and he made men and women different for a reason.

The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it ... Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is like him." ... Then the Lord God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. - Genisis 2:15,18,22
- Man was formed from the ground for the ground and is therefore work-oriented. Woman was formed from a man, for a man; she is, therefore, relationally oriented.

How true is this? StuDoc definitely prioritizes achievements and goals, where I focus more on relationships.  Can you imagine if two people were only work-oriented or only relational. They would miss out on a lot in life. It always helps to be reminded that we were created different for a reason. Instead of trying to change eachother we should be better about listening and find a compromise. With little time that we get to spend with eachother, we don't have time to fight over silly things.

One thing we learned during this study was actually something a friend had suggested. She said that a lot of times her and her husband will end up arguing just to argue. For example, the argument can just get escalated into something bigger than it started out to be. She said, now when they can't agree on something they ask eachother on a scale from 1-10 how important is this to you? Usually, it ends up being really important to one person and not as much to the other. Maybe deciding on where christmas decorations should go, how the dishwasher should be organized, taking care of the cars, etc. I think we will quickly learn that most of the time we are fighting for something we don't really care what the outcome is. We'll notice that it quickly escalated into the crazy cycle.   It will be hard to remember in the middle of an argument to stop and ask the question how important is this to you, but it's worth the try!

Roles of the husband

to love their wives, to lead their wives, and to live with their wives

When a man leads their wife and family he must take the initiative and be engaged/involved. We actually talked about how it will be interesting with his profession how 'involved' he will actually get to be. Will this be an ongoing battle for his kids and wife to be tugging on him to spend more quality time with them or will this just have to be one of those things the family will need to accept and understand that he is busy saving lives? Having a family is just as important to my husband as it is to me. I know that this is something that he internally will struggle with. When reading other doctor's wives' blogs, a common theme is the doctor missing out on birthdays, sporting events, holidays, and get togethers. I know that this is something I will understand and eventually adjust to. But we worry about our future kids. How quickly will they understand why their dad misses their little league games? Eventually, just like every child, they will grow up and realize the sacrifices their parents made for their well-being and have more of an adult perspective looking back on their childhood.

And of course, not every doctor lives this way. Some work 8-5 Monday through Friday, some work 48 hours straight and 72 hours off, and some are just always on call. When these Student Doctors are deciding which specialty they want to go into, the life-style of each one plays a vital role for most.

Back to College?

Sometimes I wish I could retake some college classes. Weird, I know! At the time, I wish I was mature enough or had the time to have taken some of them more seriously and gain as much out of them as I could. Students are so pressured to just make the good grade and get out, instead of actually learning as much as they can. If there weren't any grades, I probably would have paid more attention. Strange how that works, huh?

I have been struggling a lot lately and wishing I completed my masters. It really is true when they say do it right out of college, because once you are out, you'll never go back. Watching my husband in school and studying as hard as he does, does NOT make me want to go back to studying. But at times, I wish I had furthered my education. Decisions, decisions...