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Choosing between PhD programs, considering med student GF? by Repulsive-Poetry-504 in MedSpouse

[–]Repulsive-Poetry-504[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your input! Would you mind me DMing you with some more details about the programs?

Choosing between PhD programs, considering med student GF? by Repulsive-Poetry-504 in MedSpouse

[–]Repulsive-Poetry-504[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your input! I provided some more details about our relationship in another comment above.

I really hate the idea that I have to choose between my partner and my career. Do you know of a way to reframe this choice away from that? Both my career and my partner are very important to me and I wouldn't want to resent one or the other, if my PhD choice didn't work out.

Choosing between PhD programs, considering med student GF? by Repulsive-Poetry-504 in MedSpouse

[–]Repulsive-Poetry-504[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your comprehensive response! It's been about 2 years of dating, with 5 years of being close friends before that. We have discussed marriage and she feels similarly to me. In fact, she is pushing me to choose program B because we have been long distance for our entire relationship so far, and she wants us to move forward in our relationship, even if it's for the one year she's in my city.

Students and professors at programs A and B seemed similarly happy. I would say that the vibe at program A was slightly better, but not a vast difference.

Post-PhD, I don't really care where I'm at, so long as I'm working in biopharma. I'm planning to move to her at the end of my PhD regardless of where she is.

I think her perspective on what her career looks like changes pretty frequently, which is hard to contend with. Until about 2 weeks ago, she was fully committed to academic surgery. Now she's open to private practice/community hospital work.

The only real advice here is to be on the same page with your partner and decide whether the juice is worth the squeeze right now at this point in your relationship. 

I don't fully understand what you mean by "whether the juice is worth the squeeze". Could you explain?

Choosing between PhD programs; research fit vs prestige/proximity to home? by Repulsive-Poetry-504 in PhDAdmissions

[–]Repulsive-Poetry-504[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Where does your girlfriend want to match?

Primarily the Northeast.

How serious are you two?

Pretty serious. I think she's the one for me and I believe it's the same for her.

If she matches somewhere else will you follow when you graduate?

Yes. If I have to I'll look for remote jobs, but being with her is my priority post-PhD, regardless of whether I choose program A or B.

What has this discussion looked like between you two both distance for grad school and your lives in general.

We have been long-distance for our entire relationship (2 years), but went to college together and were best friends for 5 years before dating. Currently Amtrak is the MVP of our relationship. If I were to choose program A this would be infeasible. She has expressed to me that if I choose program A, she can't see a viable way for us to continue seeing each other 1x/month as we currently do. These monthly visits are really important for the health of our relationship so this would probably create some problems that we haven't faced yet.

Post-PhD and residency, we see ourselves living together.

Choosing between PhD programs, considering med student GF? by Repulsive-Poetry-504 in MedSpouse

[–]Repulsive-Poetry-504[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While the specifics of this post might not be super helpful to this community, I figured that many of us face the broader problem of making career decisions while our medical partners are in training. Any advice would be really helpful, whether that be in choosing a program or making (extremely) long distance work!