Regarding doctors, wives and medicine
To all those who read my EMN column, posted above, about doctor’s wives, let me point out a few things.
First of all, don’t be discouraged. After 18 years of marriage, including three years of residency in EM and almost 15 years of practice, our marriage is better than ever. I know many successful marriages in emergency medicine, where the couples love and care for each other and raise their children well.
I may have over-stated the negatives. If I did, I apologize. The failure of an interview format is that it’s easy to over or under-emphasize points through the editorial viewpoint of the interviewer.
Emergency medicine allows enormous freedom for a couple willing to live reasonably. I have tons of time with my wife and children! I know them well, because I decided long ago to make less money and be home more. I’m not out of debt, and my car (that’s making an odd noise) is ten years old. However, my wife and I chose that life; the happiness, security and calm of our children give testament to the wisdom of the course. The solidity of our relationship as a couple is a reminder that medicine does not, inherently, wreck marriages; it only offers the opportunity. So, be assured it can work if you want it to. If you don’t, medicine will offer you ample opportunities to ‘pull the handle’ and eject.
Regarding nurses looking for doctors, the truth is that it happens. Or perhaps I should say, doctors looking for nurses. Humans are easily tempted away from relationships into new ones. This happens in medicine with regularity, but is not a requirement of practice.
However, what I wrote came on the heels of two disrupted marriages in our department. All the people involved were friends, whom I care about a great deal. But they were doctors and nurses who left marriages for one another. The ladies I spoke to were affected by the reality of that event in their lives. That’s truth, not perception or imagination.
Sorry I didn’t talk to a doctor’s husband. I just don’t know any. Maybe I will someday!
So, doctors and spouses, press on! And whatever you do, however important you are, whether you think I’m right, wrong or crazy, put your family first, always.
If you don’t, you’ll regret it. If you do, you’ll know happiness that others will envy. And your spouse and children will thank you for the rest of their lives.
Edwin
Its 3:30 pm, the kids just got home from school and are hungry, the baby is crying, and I just kissed my loving husband goodbye so he could make his 4pm shift. He walks back in the house, tosses his EMN at me and says, “Oh, I meant to show you this!”. “I think its going to be a rough night,” I call after him. “I know it is for me!” he shouts back laughing.
And such is the life in an EM household. We recently went out to dinner to celebrate our 12th year of marriage. The waiter came to fill our water glasses just as my husband launches into a tirade about his latest “vag bleeder”. Yes, this is our dinner conversation. Even on romantic nights. On nights he can make it home for dinner, he calls and says things like,” I’ll be home as soon as I do this pelvic.”
To the gal who is in residency, hang in there; its worth it. But never say you didn’t have full disclosure. The challenges can outweigh the joys if you let it. (We had twins our 4th year of residency) Just don’t let it. And yes, my husband regularly gets called “….aliscous”, and not just by the nurses. But no matter what, he adores our family and we adore him for who he is as much as for what he does.
I am an ER nurse and please do not degrade my profession and my hard work by alluding to the fact we all want to date/marry doctors. It’s a stereotype we RN’s all hate with a passion.
Affairs happen in any work environment.
To the medicine wives, I think it’s tough to be married to someone who never gets home on time(most of the docs I work with NEVER get out on time)and is gone holidays and birthdays. And no, I don’t want your husband. The majority of us don’t. We do have lives of our own.
Don’t forget that there are professional married nurses that have husbands who have to hear us decompress at 1 am, too. I don’t go to work for the social aspect. I go there to help people just like the docs.
I went to school because I wanted to be a nurse, not to marry some doctor. I know it’s a shocker that there are people in the world who want to help others and don’t care how much money they make.
Sorry for the rant and I hope it wasn’t too harsh. I just get sick of the generalities people make about doctor/nurse relationships. We actually can work well together, and believe it or not we have probably saved your husband’s ass a few times in the process.
Yes, affairs happen in all work environments, and all nurses don’t want doctors. The fact is, some have blatently approached my husband and asked him out, or even offered some “favor” knowing that he is married and has four children. dmk1974, perhaps you should be looking to your own profession, and why this stereotype that you hate is being perpetuated. I am an ER nurse as well, and have seen blatent come-ons by nurses, secretaries, techs, and radiology techs. This “stereotype” isn’t because of an article by Dr. Leap. If you feel that our profession of nursing is being degraded, speak to your fellow RNs about their behaviour. Ed…as always, you are brilliant.
Oh, and thanks for “saving my husband’s ass”. He’s saved numerous people, but doesn’t shout it from the tree-tops. He’s reinserted central lines, re-intubated, and changed orders to erase a nursing error. If you function well by boosting your own thoughts of self-worth while bringing someone else down, then so be it. Doesn’t sound much like team work to me.