Med school lad is investigating future potential residency places and the following question came up. I told him I’d ask.
How many doctors end up staying where or very near where they did residency?
Are there stats for that anywhere? We know one “can” go anywhere to be a doctor, but how many actually do leave to go elsewhere vs where they get familiar via training?
I know many doctors near us also did their residency nearby. Ditto for my mom. The doctors I know IRL (outside of being a client, but there aren’t many) also stayed close to or where they did their residency. Is that the norm?
A lot. But this is because they are hooked into the local medical community and may have been offered job locally well before they finish residency. Also residents who perform well and are well liked by their program are often times asked to stay on at their residency site as staff or affiliates. Also since the young doctor also has a medical license for the state where they did residency, they can start work right away. It can take up to 6 months to get a license in a new state. (And one cannot work until one has the license in hand.)
But this does not mean a resident is destined to stay at or near the residency site. There are national recruiting agencies that will “head hunt” young doctors for positions all across the US.
However, finding a job in a specific location is not guaranteed and can be almost impossible. It all depends on the job market for the particular specialty and what’s available when the resident graduates. Residents typically start looking for job about year before the end of residency.
Finding an academic track job is difficult and usually requires an applicant to go to where-ever the job is available.
P.S. Your son can get a feel for where graduated residents end up for a specific program by googling for a residency site webpage. Residencies sometimes list where its grads have gone.
D1 co-residents ended up mostly in NYC-CT-Boston area, but one is in the SW, three are in So California, one is in a command position at Ft Detrick, MD, and still another is at rural Virginia VA hospital where he’s doing his 5 years of service to get his green card.
@WayOutWestMom Thank you for that very useful information. Would you recommend someone cut programs off their list due to not liking a particular area to settle in?
Obviously they are good programs - highly recommended by doctors at the school he goes to. But he has several options. Should he not even try those or go ahead and try them, but keep them toward the bottom of his match list? (knowing he can match anywhere)
FWIW, his advisors feel he’ll be competitive anywhere, but we all know that doesn’t mean he’ll “get” anywhere.
That is a very personal decision. One can use any criteria they like to narrow down the list of potential residencies. Comfortable college town vs downtown big city. East Coast vs West Coast. North vs South. How close is the nearest major airport. Whether housing is affordable on a residents’ salary. Job availability for one’s partner/spouse. I’ve even known single applicants not apply to programs in smaller towns/cities because the dating pool there is too shallow.
But it’s always better to have too many choices during the Match process than not enough. A student can always decline interviews. And if a interview site visit leaves an applicant unimpressed with the area, they can always rank it lower on their list or not rank it at all.
And one never knows, you may think that you hate , but the program and fellow residents may be terrific and you just click with them.
Also keep in mind, that while young doctors are horribly busy during residency, they do have plenty of down time too. It’s really good for their mental health if they can be content with where they live and not be totally miserable during their time off.
I think much of it depends on the priorities. D said most of her classmates who pursued local residencies were mostly in state in terms of their families. I would assume they stay back since they chose residency based on being close to families. Many choose residency based on the rankings and so if someone is in NY but top ranked program in in Mass or Maryland or wherever, you go there but do you want to stay back. How about whether you want to do fellowship and where you end up for that? I know a local kid who did residency, fellowship and now asst prof all in Boston who may settle there because of a preference for academics but another local kid who did residency in Houston, did fellowship in NY and superspecialty in Boston who is planning to come back to Houston. I know a couple who met at Rice (one local and other from Alabama) did medicine at different places, residency and fellowship in boston and moved to Houston.
If you stop at residency, you can practically live any where but if you do fellowship or go further, you have to decide on various tradeoffs in terms of choosing where to live.
As Texaspg mentions–there are a ton of factors that go into deciding where to settle after residency. A lot of life happens during residency. Residents get married and that means there are two career tracks to consider. Residents start families and become reluctant to uproot children from local schools. And if a resident decides to pursue a fellowship, then it’s the Match all over again and you go where the computer tells you to.
D1 fully intended to return to her home state to practice. She’d been offered a very well paying job while she was still in med school. However, during residency she got married and her new spouse had a job that is location restricted and not compatible with returning to the state.
D2 was less sure she wanted to return home, but she hadn’t made any kind of final decision. However, she now has partner who has his own career trajectory that requires consideration.
Also, depending on your son’s eventual specialty, he can do locum tenens. Locums are temporary jobs that last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. Locums work as substitutes for doctors on vacation, on maternity/paternity leave, on extended sick leave. Locums also work for medical practices/hospitals that are having difficulty finding a permanent staff member to fill a position. (Particularly true in rural locations.) Locums physicians work for agencies that place them. Locums get a hourly wage (with overtime pay if they work >40 hours/week–something which most physician jobs don’t offer) plus paid malpractice, a generous living expenses stipend and paid travel costs. Locums jobs can be very lucrative and often locums physicians work only 6 months or less/year, but make almost as much as full time employed physician.
Most of the doctors in my community did not train in this area. We are a pretty transient part of the country anyway- but when you read through the bio’s on the various hospital websites it’s intriguing to see where folks start and where they end up.
The CMO of the biggest hospital in the area used to be my primary care physician. I asked him (this is probably 20 years ago) how he ended up on the East Coast since he went to med school in Texas and did his residency in California… he told me he needed to find a job to accommodate his wife’s grad school options- and voila. He was voted “doctor of the year” or something about ten years running and is an absolutely fantastic human being and humanitarian-- California’s loss is our gain!
I have a doctor friend who relocated to Houston late in life (still practicing) whose kids are close to 40, both physicians. One is married and settled down with a couple of kids while the other has stayed single and travels the world with a lot of spare time and has been practicing locum for more than a decade.
@Creekland, I’d never encourage a med student to eliminate a good program just because of its location. Leave that to the ranking list. Consider the location after the interview process; see if you like the program and its people before eliminating it. Consider the importance of location, along with other important factors, when you create the ranking list. Don’t limit the number of applications based solely on location. For me, this is akin to judging a book by its cover.
Also, bear in mind the competitive nature of the specialty must play a huge role in decision-making. Orthopedics, for example, matches about only 75% of its applicants. Podunk, USA may not be appealing to the med student, but matching there is better than not matching at all! Said student still gets to be an orthopedic surgeon and, after 5 years in Podunk, will likely be able to choose a fellowship in a more desirable location.
That said, a friend’s son, from the East Coast, did his residency in a Midwestern state. Not a total surprise–he fell in love with a local woman and they settled near her home! My friend now must get on an airplane when she wants to see her grandchildren…Something to think about! Good luck to your med student!