Physician: Which Job to Choose

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TheUMOCowboy
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Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by TheUMOCowboy »

I am a long time lurker, first time poster. I have learned so much from the folks on this site and am extremely grateful for the bogleheads collective wisdom. I thought I would try to see if you could help me with my current situation. It's really starting to keep me up at night so here goes...

Background: I am a physician and am finishing my last year of a loan repayment assignment at a rural hospital in my home state. While it's a decent place to work, it's far from my and my wife's family, has bad schools (I now have my childrens' future educational potential to fret about), and pays about 20% less (without the loan repayment) than other possible jobs in the state. I am looking for something closer to family, with good schools and good pay. My wife can pretty much work anywhere. Here are my options, pay is comparable:

Job #1: Live in nice rural/suburb with excellent schools, commute about 40 mins to work (I work 12 shifts a month, may go to part time in 5 - 10 years), less than 30 mins from family in all directions. Pricey area but pretty affordable if you want the standard 4BR, 2.5BA, 1 acre subdivision deal. The Job is OK.

Job#2: Live in beautiful rural area of state. Live on lake, ride bike to work. School is rural/OK. 1 to 1.5 hours from friends and family. Very affordable housing. Job is pretty good, relaxed.

Job#3: Live in swanky coastal town. Bike ride to work. 1.5 - 2 hours to family and friends. Very affordable as long as you're cool with not living on the actual coast, which is fine with my wife and me. Very good schools.


Of course, the ideal situation is a great job, close to family, great schools and minimal commute, but I just don't have that as an option right now. I don't know which factors to weigh the most. My wife is equally as torn. Because of my uncertainty, regardless of our decision, I'll probably end up renting for a year anyway but getting a job and renting a place in a new area is a pain in the butt, especially with kids, so I'd like to nail the decision on my first try.

Thanks for reading and any advice is greatly appreciated.
BAM!
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by BAM! »

how much do you depend on the family? daycare, etc. i would go with option 3 as it sounds like the schools are the best.
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tyrion
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by tyrion »

You didn't mention the (potential) job satisfaction on job #3. I would lean to #2 myself - this had the highest job rating by you, has recreation possibilities, and is not too far from family/friends. #3 sounds good too. Your description makes it seem like #1 is not your favorite choice - there is probably a reason for that.

Here's an idea. Take a 6 sided die. 1-2 is job #1, 3-4 is job #2, 5-6 is job #3. Roll it. See if you are happy or unhappy with the result. You may be surprised.
sawhorse
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by sawhorse »

How old are your kids? How much would you need to invest in your practice to get it up and running?
TMCD75
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by TMCD75 »

I like #2, it seems to be most rational. I'm not a swanky kind of guy, so that sort of ruined the third option.
Beth*
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by Beth* »

I grew up about an hour from my grandparents and as a kid it felt like a good distance. I got to know them well, we saw them once or twice a month, and they were available during emergencies. If my mother got sick or my parents had to be out of town it was easy for them to take us to our grandparents or for our grandparents to come and stay with us. My mother didn't have a job outside the home so she didn't need their help for daily baby-sitting.

One of my adult children lives about an hour from us and from my perspective as the adult that feels about right also. We see her a couple of times a month, but we all have our independence.

Speaking as an adult, I don't think I'd want to be much closer to my parents and in-laws than an hour. I don't know what your relationship with your family is, but sometimes a little distance is good.
mikegerard
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by mikegerard »

I'd pick 1. Best school choice and close enough to friends and family to help out (or have them help out) in emergencies. You'll be making good money so you could always buy a much nicer house in a couple years if you don't like the standard 1 acre lot.

I also like the idea of rolling a die. Your gut will tell you if its the right decision.

Mike
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obgyn65
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by obgyn65 »

I'd take #3.
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zebrafish
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by zebrafish »

Go with your gut.

All sound like pretty good options.
samsmith
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by samsmith »

I'd lean towards # 3 - assuming the pay is comparable.
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dm200
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by dm200 »

What does spouse think?
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tludwig23
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by tludwig23 »

I'd take #3. Make sure you have a nice guest room or MIL, cottage, etc., and the distance to family and friends won't be such an issue because everyone will want to come stay with you in the swanky coastal town. (This assumes the job itself is comparable.)
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dhodson
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by dhodson »

Id be sure that you really want to be very close to family. I've found we work best without family too much in the picture.

I'd also be careful about what is a good school. My HS would be considered bad. Allowed me to be relatively great at a lot of things. Made a big difference for me. I grew up believing I could be the best. Just be careful how you define things.
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TheUMOCowboy
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by TheUMOCowboy »

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I think my wife prefers option #1, but is open to #2 and #3.

Our child is 16 months old (with another on the way) so having family close by would be really helpful but I can already see as our children grow older it may be OK to have a little more distance.

The school issue is amazingly stressful to me. It seems that some studies suggest it makes no difference while there have been a couple of threads in this very forum whose consensus seems to be that we should try to be in the best school system that is reasonably affordable. But how much do you sacrifice (with commute, job quality, housing costs) so that the person you love most in the world can go from Great Schools District ranking of 6 to 9 or 10? I think it's that part of the decision that really puts a type A personality like mine into a viscous feedback loop.

Anyway, I really appreciate the advice and I think, ultimately, the dice roll might make the most sense. I mean, there are only so many variables we can control and the rest is up to chance (jobs, schools, family location can all change in 10 plus years). Oh, the tyranny of choice.
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celia
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by celia »

Think of the job following the next one (#1, #2, #3) when it's time to move on. Will THAT be your ideal job?
Of course, the ideal situation is a great job, close to family, great schools and minimal commute, but I just don't have that as an option right now.
Which of these 3 jobs will make it easier to get the "ideal" job? Think about:
Will you need growth in your career (other than the minimum needed for maintaining your license)?
Will hospital affiliation (reputation) matter?
Would networking help you land it? (networking is not limited to those in your field; consider educated neighbors, PTAs, the community as a whole)
Last edited by celia on Tue Jul 14, 2015 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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StormShadow
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by StormShadow »

Assuming the work conditions are solid, I'd pick #3.

There's definite value in shortening your commute time.

I think fretting over schools is a little overrated with your children still so young. Be a good parent, your kids will turn out fine. And who knows, you might move again in a few years anyhow.
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by Herekittykitty »

I'm a doc. Days are long enough without adding a 40 minute each way (80 minute round trip assuming no traffic problems) commute every day. And when one considers the alternative to such a commute is living a nice, healthy, fun bike ride to and from work?

It wouldn't take me many of those 80 mile round trip days to start dreaming about how great it would be to have that additional time with spouse and kids, morning coffee, or whatever.

Given your options, I would take the 80 mile round trip option off the table because I would think the quality of life difference in that and the much closer bike riding options would be significant for a number of reasons.

Sure, lots of people make that round trip and longer each day and do just fine. But you don't have to.
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mikegerard
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by mikegerard »

TheUMOCowboy wrote:Thanks for the replies everyone.
The school issue is amazingly stressful to me. It seems that some studies suggest it makes no difference while there have been a couple of threads in this very forum whose consensus seems to be that we should try to be in the best school system that is reasonably affordable.

It does not matter what school your kids go to. It's all hype.
There are studies of public vs private in England, US, and Australia. All come to the same conclusion. Birth weight is a better predictor of academic performance than school.
http://eprints.usq.edu.au/26881/1/Schoo ... _clean.pdf

My wife went to a tiny public school. The whole district from k-12 was less than 600 kids. There were few to no opportunities for AP or advanced classes but students had many opportunities for sports and band. I went to a high end public high school in Beverly Hills. I had to apply to go there and most of my friends went to another school closer to home. We had lots of funding for great facilities (we had an oil well on campus). We had APs in many sciences and 3 foreign languages + Latin. There were 2400 kids in my high school. Making a sports team was nearly impossible and we had people in our chorus who went on to professional careers in opera. In the end, my wife and I both ended up with Ph.Ds in engineering from UM. If I could do it again I would have gone to the school with my friends.

All parents need to justify that their kid is special and their school is great. I would guess that 90% of parents think their school is above average. All the research says that other factors (birth weight, parents involvement, mom's occupation) make more of a difference than what school you go to.
dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

2 sounds ideal to me. but that's just due to my values which may not be yours.

I would avoid bringing kids up in a swanky area.

Schools do matter, not so much splitting hairs about close academic standards, but gangs, bullying, variety of courses. I was shocked to find that the local supposedly good schools where I live have really cut down the availability of foreign languages, for example. I would also take a look at the science courses.
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BTDT
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by BTDT »

#2...... Live on a lake with short trip to work. Friends and relatives will come to visit you :oops:
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celia
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by celia »

TheUMOCowboy wrote:Job #1: Live in nice rural/suburb with excellent schools, commute about 40 mins to work (I work 12 shifts a month, may go to part time in 5 - 10 years), less than 30 mins from family in all directions. Pricey area but pretty affordable if you want the standard 4BR, 2.5BA, 1 acre subdivision deal. The Job is OK.
If you pick this one, why don't you live closer to work so you can ride a bike? You will be going to work more often than visiting family, won't you?
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tludwig23
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by tludwig23 »

mikegerard wrote:
TheUMOCowboy wrote:Thanks for the replies everyone.
The school issue is amazingly stressful to me. It seems that some studies suggest it makes no difference while there have been a couple of threads in this very forum whose consensus seems to be that we should try to be in the best school system that is reasonably affordable.

It does not matter what school your kids go to. It's all hype.
There are studies of public vs private in England, US, and Australia. All come to the same conclusion. Birth weight is a better predictor of academic performance than school.
http://eprints.usq.edu.au/26881/1/Schoo ... _clean.pdf
This study compared Catholic and independent private schools versus public schools in Australia.

It did not look at the quality of the schools. No comparison was made between top public schools and bottom public schools for example.

It also lacks external validity to the OP's concern as it involved the Australian school system, which is significantly different that the US system.
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Thomas Hunt Morgan
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by Thomas Hunt Morgan »

TheUMOCowboy wrote:Thanks for the replies everyone.

I think my wife prefers option #1, but is open to #2 and #3.

Happy wife, happy life. Option 1
matonplayer
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by matonplayer »

Herekittykitty wrote:I'm a doc. Days are long enough without adding a 40 minute each way (80 minute round trip assuming no traffic problems) commute every day. And when one considers the alternative to such a commute is living a nice, healthy, fun bike ride to and from work?

It wouldn't take me many of those 80 mile round trip days to start dreaming about how great it would be to have that additional time with spouse and kids, morning coffee, or whatever.

Given your options, I would take the 80 mile round trip option off the table because I would think the quality of life difference in that and the much closer bike riding options would be significant for a number of reasons.

Sure, lots of people make that round trip and longer each day and do just fine. But you don't have to.
+1. No way I would commute that far unless I had to do it.
miles monroe
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by miles monroe »

80 minutes a day in the car versus riding a bike to work?

for me option 1 would be off the table.

options 2 and 3 come down to personal preference.
JDot
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by JDot »

One of the best indicators of happiness is whether you have a portal to portal commute of 15 minutes or less (one way). I would strongly consider this point.
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zebrafish
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by zebrafish »

I would argue that short commute is underrated.

I spent 3+ years commuting 2.5 hours per day. It wears on you. Also, you realize that that 2.5 hours could be spent with your wife, your kids, your hobbies, etc.

Once I got the chance to work within 10 minutes of home, I jumped on it. Now I use every second of that ex-commuting time with my family-- mostly my kids. As your kids get older, you can do more stuff with them. They have more activities. That time is precious. It cannot be bought.
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zebrafish
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by zebrafish »

Would also argue that if you have any type of call/shift/overnight work, the shorter commute is also a safer option for your health-- less likely to fall asleep while driving home. Also, if you have call responsibilities, any commute just kills your weekend/nights even more.
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celia
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by celia »

Do the employers provide housing (ie, military bases)? If not, you are not restricted to the choices as listed. You could take any of the jobs and find housing within x miles of the job site, can't you? In any direction from the job, there will be better and worse schools to chose from.

So you still have lots of choices. Possibly that's what seems overwhelming. The 3 choices as spelled out seem to take distance to relatives into account as if that is quite important to you. To take the emotions out of some of the decision-making process, you could just get a map and mark the location of each relative and the location of each job. Around each job, draw a circle with the same radius, where radius is how far you would ride a bike to work. Then look at neighborhoods on the sides of the drawn circles that are between your relatives and the jobs.

We have no idea of the geography we are talking about, like mountains in the middle of this map or oil wells or the Grand Canyon. But it really doesn't matter. This is just an idea for another way of looking at things.
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island
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by island »

I'd eliminate # 1 because of the long commute especially if you live somewhere with periods of harsh weather.
Mine's about an hour each way when traffic is bad, which is often and it gets old, but been doing it for years so anything is possible. My attitude is it is what it is and here in CA it's often the norm. However if I had a good alternative to not make that drive 5 days a week, I'd jump on it.

Oh wait, by "12 shifts", does that mean you'll be making that drive 12 times a month? Hmmmm, If so, on second thought that's not a lot.
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by Rajsx »

I would put academic progress high in the midst of these options, I know at these beginning stages it may not matter much, as more money seems like a over riding reason in many cases.

I would look at, which one of these hospitals is a teaching, tertiary care & a reputed leader in the area. The skills we all learned after long training years wear off if you do not use them & then the daily drudgery of being just adequate sets in as every one else around you is doing the same in a small, no name hospital in a far off suburb/rural setting.

If you have well preserved skills you are still marketable for an opportunity, in case it comes to that, say after 15 yrs in practice. We all buy ....say a Lexus for its name, and a history of a reliable, well functioning automobile.
The name follows you in our field, as a Harvard....Yale trained Doc. So choose wisely.

Living close to work cannot be under estimated, put this option high when you choose. When I see family once a month or so, I would favor driving an extra hour occasionally vs a longer drive every day.

We are not Sprinters, we practice for say.... 20 to 25 years, if you like your place of work and keep learning /maintaining your skills, the money also keeps getting made. We all make a good living, give or take a tiny fration, & at retirement have similar amounts saved , but only some will have the professional satisfaction & many will just be counting only their savings, hollow goals.

Take it from a just retired physician. Good luck & best wishes with whatever you end up choosing.
mikegerard
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by mikegerard »

tludwig23 wrote:
mikegerard wrote:
TheUMOCowboy wrote:Thanks for the replies everyone.
The school issue is amazingly stressful to me. It seems that some studies suggest it makes no difference while there have been a couple of threads in this very forum whose consensus seems to be that we should try to be in the best school system that is reasonably affordable.

It does not matter what school your kids go to. It's all hype.
There are studies of public vs private in England, US, and Australia. All come to the same conclusion. Birth weight is a better predictor of academic performance than school.
http://eprints.usq.edu.au/26881/1/Schoo ... _clean.pdf
This study compared Catholic and independent private schools versus public schools in Australia.

It did not look at the quality of the schools. No comparison was made between top public schools and bottom public schools for example.

It also lacks external validity to the OP's concern as it involved the Australian school system, which is significantly different that the US system.

Two other studies cited were for schools in England and US. Those looked at private vs public. Yes that's a broad range but most schools are pretty average. The OP is looking at "good" and "very good" schools. There will be no difference for his kids which school he picks. He's not looking at schools with high levels of poverty or violence. And remember we are concerned about individual performance. Sure there are huge differences in average scores. But the students at these different schools are usually not at all comparable.

There was a recent study by payscale.com or glassdoor.com that looked at salary by years since college, college major, and college selectivity. Similar to the above studies there were no correlations between college selectivity and salary within a major for engineering majors. For liberal arts there was a slight trend but it was very small. I found this really surprising because you would think that the MIT grad will make more than the Univ. of Anystate.
inbox788
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Re: Physician: Which Job to Choose

Post by inbox788 »

TheUMOCowboy wrote:I think my wife prefers option #1, but is open to #2 and #3.

Our child is 16 months old (with another on the way) so having family close by would be really helpful but I can already see as our children grow older it may be OK to have a little more distance.

The school issue is amazingly stressful to me. It seems that some studies suggest it makes no difference while there have been a couple of threads in this very forum whose consensus seems to be that we should try to be in the best school system that is reasonably affordable. But how much do you sacrifice (with commute, job quality, housing costs) so that the person you love most in the world can go from Great Schools District ranking of 6 to 9 or 10? I think it's that part of the decision that really puts a type A personality like mine into a viscous feedback loop.
Just some ideas. Option 1 seems best for young child 1-5 years old. Can't enjoy outdoors or beaches that much yet, and the family help is appreciated. Ages 5-10 is nice to be near coast, so move to option 2, and as the child gets older, 10-15 years old, the outdoor activities become more enjoyable, so move again.
Family seems to be important, so just bite he bullet, and accept the sacrifices you'll need to make to be closer. After a few arguments, it's easier to move away a bit.
You're not hard core type A until you realize that even a 10 rating on a public school is inadequate, and send the kids to private school. Soon, you'll realize there is only one school within 100 miles that is good enough and spout acronyms like HYP.
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