<p>I was told something like 190 out of 230 MS4 students at UT Houston are married, soon to be married or tied up and not looking.</p>
<p>Do you think because the girl lets another girl to come to the movie date, she likely put DS on the “just a friend” ladder instead of the bf/gf ladder? (I once read one article in which the author argues that a girl could quite quickly decide whether a male friend would belong to one or the other of these ladders and once she has decided, it is very unlikely he could jump from one ladder to the other.)</p>
<p>I hope this is not the case. Maybe the parents who have a D may know better about this.</p>
<p>DS recently had some “couch duty” (not that he actually needed to sleep on the couch that night though.) The gf of one of his friends visited. His friend (actually a classmate) needed to let the gf to sleep in his room so DS’s friend needed to come to his room to sleep (many nights as she was from another state.) DS had ordered some mop from amazon beforehand and cleaned the floor so that his friend could sleep on a cleaner floor. He needed to leave his dorm room door open for those nights as his friend came to his room to sleep on the floor very late most of those nights.</p>
<p>His friend is very conservative in today’s standard, as it is not acceptable for him to sleep on the floor of his own dorm room while his gf sleeps in his bed. They are in committed relationship.</p>
<p>mcat2 - that sounds so highschoolish! I do suggest that if your DS is going to movies with two girls, neither of them is his GF.</p>
<p>Edit - I did not see the update on your previous post but going to free movies on campus - not a date! IMHO, money’s gotto be involved and someone has to pay for the other…</p>
<p>Yea…I tend to agree with you; this is not a date (and so highschool-ish). I just want to confirm this.</p>
<p>He rented a car from Enterprise as well as the parking space from the school for a month. It is not cheap (like almost $50 a day including the insurance.) Somehow he still said no when we suggested we should buy him a car for his next semester. At least he has “upgraded” from the zip car to the longer term rental car. He is “slow” on this front as well. LOL.</p>
<p>1500 dollars to rent a car for a month sounds like a lot. Most rental places have weekly rates.</p>
<p>Most places have monthly rates that are half that $1500.</p>
<p>The rent itself is about $700. About the same is for the insurance, etc., on the car and the parking, I think. We insist he purchased the insurance (is it called collision?) for the rental car so that he will not be hassled by the rental car company, should there be any damage to the rental car.</p>
<p>To be sure, he did not shop around. He just went to a rental car company within the walking distance. We rented a car there before when we visited him in the past. He tends to “copy” what we haven done before. An example is that we would often figure out the route and where to park beforehand, if we know the destination in advance. He did the same for his new rotation location.</p>
<p>The credit card company wants him or us to call them before they authorize the payment. This is because DS has almost never used that card (that he shares with us) in that city. For some strange reason, he prefers to use his debit card instead of any of his credit cards, even though he has had those credit cards for 7 years. (It was very easy to get credit cards about the time he went to college.)</p>
<p>Texas insurance usually covers rentals in other states. I also use Amex from Costco which charges 25$ flat for insurance irrespective of the length of the rental.</p>
<p>It is nice to know that. He used Discover this time. But neither he nor we read the fine prints to see if there are such goodies.</p>
<p>Our family also relies on Cosco more and more. For example, we purchased a vitamix from there recently. Both of our GPS devices were from there too. I even heard that if we go through them to purchase a new car, the out-of-pocket price could be lower in some states. Not sure if it is true though.</p>
<p>Since this is a medical school related thread, how difficult is it for a med school student to get credits since almost all of them do not have income? For example, will any car dealer lease a car to them without parents’ cosigning the lease?</p>
<p>I normally book my rentals through Costco travel site because their coupons are posted right on the site and they also provide comparison shopping between the vendors so you can pick the best offers at that moment including the coupons.</p>
<p>A year or two ago, we asked a company to come in to give us an estimate on one of our home improvement projects (forgot whether it was the gutter, windows or the sprinkler system. but definitely one of the big ticket items.) The price was high and we hesitated to commit to it. In order to persuade us to give them the business, the sales person from that company pull out a form from Cosco and told us that if we filled out that application form, they could give us quite a deep discount. That company appears to have nothing to do with Cosco. Since then, we were converted from a Sam’s Club member to a Cosco member.</p>
<p>Being a small family after becoming an empty nest, we rarely shopped our grocery there. It is only a place where we occasionally purchase some big ticket item.</p>
<p>It may be a good idea for those on the trail of med school interview trips to book their rental through Cosco? (Trying to pull the discussions back to some topics remotely related to med schools.)</p>
<p>My DD is checking Costco, USAA, and CarRentals.com for each rental. Various sites are better for different areas, but USAA has been the best for most.</p>
<p>Son uses USAA for his rentals. Our USAA policy covers the rental insurance so we do not have to purchase any additional insurance for rentals. Son rented a mini-van from JFK (he flew in from RDU) in order to move GF from Manhattan to his place in CH. Was $215 plus gas for 2 days. But he was dropping vehicle off at RDU not back at JFK. There was some snafu at pick-up so USAA comped his gas. So he was a happy camper.</p>
<p>We carry USAA on the Subaru we share and insurance is dirt-cheap with a $50 deductible which includes a tow package, free windshield replacement and 30-day free rental car in case of an accident. Son did have to pay to park at the hospital this term and next (next is pro-rated since he will be in Asheville and Charlotte for some rotations) but it didn’t seem to be much. With the GF now moved in and picking up some of the shared expenses (she is working) his outlay has substantially decreased. Travel expenses have also decreased so he is much less stressed about the $$ than he was previously. She is a really great cook (I am impressed) and has him back to eating really healthy.</p>
<p>Even though he is not liking his rotation much (surgery) he does seem to be enjoying life a lot more since she moved down here. It has been remarked by others in his same situation that he is much happier and joyful than any of them. They want in on the secret!!</p>
<p>Her folks and family are adjusting their schedules and vacations for his schedule and her recent move. They secured a timeshare for the whole family in Hilton Head SC for the time he has off after surgery during winter break. They timed it perfectly to this winter’s break and made sure it will be flexible for next year and son’s possible residency (hopefully local!). They don’t want him to have to travel any real distance during his time off but want him to have a vacation to look forward to. I was invited as well so I am very excited!</p>
<p>I am hosting Turkey Day for everyone so will be busy. he does have the T-day off, he checked his schedule well in advance. He also has his b-day off for B-school stuff. I can’t complain, I see him so much more than when he went to undergrad up north. Makes me a happy mommy!!!</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>mcat2,
Cosco is our absolutely favorite place to shop. It is only 2 of us also. We buy things there that we cannot buy anywhere else, nobody carry some foods. And it is cheaper at Cosco.
yesterday we have discovered that their Opticals is so much better and greatly cheaper than other Vision places in our city and they happen to take my insurance in addition to being cheap. We visit Cosco on a very regular basis, at least once in 2 weeks. We do not buy much at other places.<br>
Anyway to hear about their rentals is a good news. I will keep it in mind. On the other hand, D. might get lucky and have interviews only in driving distance.</p>
<p>Good news for our girls:</p>
<p>Female doctors, especially those in their early careers, might be worried about being judged as less competent than their male counterparts by colleagues and patients alike. However, research by Shah and Ogden suggests that young female doctors should be more confident in how they are perceived, at least by patients.</p>
<p>In their study they presented patients with one of eight pictures of a doctor who was either young or old, male or female and Asian or White and asked them about their perceptions of and reactions to those doctors, for example how comfortable they would feel with the doctor physically examining them or how good they thought the doctor would be at explaining the cause of their symptoms to them. While Asian and White doctors were perceived quite similarly, young and female doctors were overall evaluated more positively. For example, patients believed that younger doctors were more likely to have a positive personal manner and better technical skills. They also stated that they would have more faith into the younger doctors’ diagnosis. Similarly, female doctors were – maybe not surprisingly – rated as more likely to explore the emotional aspects of health and having a better personal manner. However, contrary to stereotypes, they were also rated as having better technical skills and patients had more faith in their diagnoses.</p>
<p>So can we hope that we are slowly moving away from the stereotype of the old, white, male doctor? Patients certainly seem to do so!</p>
<p>Repayment med school debt</p>
<p>In some recent posts I saw some discussion about this issue. Although, my S is an extremely busy first year resident and talking to him is like talking to the walking dead, I am learning little pieces of info about how med school debt repayment may work. While the bank of mom and dad saw that his direct college expenses were paid as well as ancillary med school related costs (MCAT prep, med school apps, interviews, moving, residency related application costs, (etc and etc and etc), we believe that he should have some skin in the game and so he’s on the hook for med school itself. </p>
<p>He will begin an IBR (income based repayment) program shortly. As a note, he lives in a high cost of living city. Although I haven’t done the math, I suspect his payments will not even cover the principal. I’m still waiting to hear but his first 12 payments may be somewhere between 0 and approx. 400 a month (I say “0” because it’s not clear if the base line income that is used for his first 12 payments is forward looking or backward looking to when he was in med school. Maybe someone else knows the answer to this??</p>
<p>Here’s the thing that some parents/students may be interested in. With IBR under certain circumstances if 120 payments (10 years) are made (not necessarily consecutively), the loan balance will be forgiven. One of those circumstances is if the borrower works for a health related nonprofit. Most residency programs are nonprofit. A lot of fellowship programs are nonprofits as well. So say a student does a 3 year residency and 4 year fellowship, assuming IBR were made during these years, it appears he/she could get 7 years of credit towards the 10. Assuming the borrower could be happy after fellowship for 3 years as say a hospitalist at a nonprofit, he/she could be debt free. This scenario may not be for everyone, just a thought.</p>
<p>D. was complemented on her bedside manners several times to the point that one of her superiors said that she better choose the specialty where she is required to talk a lot. (Well, you can easily guess, he was a psychiatrist). She said that based on her observations social side is very different from specialty to specialty and different specialties seem to attract different personalities. She definitley does not fit into some at all, she probably would fall apart.</p>
<p>as a card carrying ‘old, white male doctor’ let me just say, who do you think are teaching these youngins those skills? 
By the way, the weather here in the Pleistocene era is marvelous.</p>
<p>Afterthought on my last post: I could be wrong but as I understood it, he will get credit for the first 12 payments just because he timely applied to,was accepted into IBR, and made the payments (even if “0”) that the IBR program required.</p>
<p>I’m not entirely clear on IBR either 'cuz neither kiddo is there yet. I just remember D1 talking about how one of her mentors was having a “loan pay-off” celebration at the end of his 10 years of IBR. The mentor was an ER doc–so 3 years of residency plus 7 years on staff at a public hospital gave him his 10 years.</p>
<p>I think the issue with IBR is that for many physician positions–even if they work at a public hospital, the doc isn’t an actual, direct employee of the hospital. Usually they work for a physician group who contracts with the hospital to provide medical services. (I know this is the case for most EM docs, anyway.)</p>