The Life of a Medical School Family

Before going into some details about what it is like to be in medical school. Let me share some pictures.

First: Joel is showing Kyper's pajamas off. After his bath looking at Dad.

I don't think I posted this picture yet. He is relaxing in his maize and blue onesie.

I listened a to a voicemail from Joel on speaker phone and this is the reaction I got from Kyper. He sure loves his dad!

Okay on to the point of this post.
Joel is in his fourth week of his first rotation. One down many more to go. :) Let me explain a little more about medical school for those of you who don't know.

Medical School has two different stages. For the last two years Joel has been in the classroom and labs listening to lectures and studying from books. That is stage one. He has now moved on to stage two: rotations. For the next two years Joel will be rotating through different areas of medicine. Basically every month Joel will be trying something new in the medical field. He still must do a little studying from books, because at the end of some rotations he has what is called a shelf exam-specific to that rotation.

So, for the month of August he has been on his psych rotation. He is following a psychiatrist and is learning what it means to be in that type of work. He has been able to do consults and see electro-shock therapy. (Yes, they still do this to some people who have severe depression.) He has enjoyed the rotation. He does have a shelf exam for this rotation, so he takes that on Friday. Next week, he starts his pediatrics rotation. This month he has primarily been in the hospital and next month he most likely will be in a clinic.

After these two stages Joel will graduate and earn his DO degree. Two years of class work and two years of field work gives him the degree. After that he will still have to do residency--so, he is a doctor but will still have supervision. Finally, after residency he is a full-fledged doctor. Residency programs vary in length depending on the specialty a person wants to go into. So, a primary care doctor will probably have a three year residency where as a nuero-surgeon will have a much longer one.

Now, what is it like to be married to a third year student. Well, I have to say I am so excited for Joel to finally begin doing some hands on work in the field he wants to go into. It may not be the exact speciality each month. I am excited for these two years, because it will be nice when he actually is home. You have to realize though his schedule changes each month. One month he could have really regular hours from 8-5 and other months he may be on call or have to work nights. Even though, he has some shelf exams and still needs to study a little bit the really nice thing is that when he is home he has more time to spend with us. So far this year has been really good, but we are only one month/rotation in. Joel's first rotation has been very easy hour wise. Rarely does he get home after 5. The last three Fridays he has been done at noon. And, it seems like at least one day a week he gets home before 3. Yes, it has been really nice for us. (Especially considering how many times we had to head back to West MI for weddings and other events--3 out of 4 weekends!) I know there are going to be months that are much harder. I think they wanted to ease us into this life. Due to the nicer hours Joel has been able to be a lot of help with Kyper as well. He has got to spend time with him each night and still gets up in the middle of the night for diaper duty. How awesome is Joel?!! (I know there will be nights he is not at home, because he is at the ER or delivering babies.)

There you have it. The life of a medical school family!