..Says me, and everyone else! Part of the reason why I tried to get more serious about my Classically Christe blog was because I wanted to share the experience of being a spouse to someone going through medical school, residency, and fellowship. When I started dating Andrew, it was like I was stepping into a whole new world that I didn’t understand. I was out of undergrad and working a full-time job while Andrew was still getting off of school for Thanksgiving break and using dining hall dollars – it just wasn’t a career path that had any similarity to my own. Family members and friends alike still ask, “Is Andrew a real doctor yet?” because this journey is just never ending! So, here is an update on where we are and how things are going.

Where Are We Now?

Andrew finished a 5-year residency at St. Luke’s in the Lehigh Valley in orthopedics in the summer of 2022. After what felt like four separate graduation ceremonies (I’m not exaggerating), the man was finally a real doctor! …Sort of. At that point, he could have gone into practice in general orthopedics, but he wanted to specialize in adult reconstruction (knees and hips) so he had already applied and gotten accepted to a fellowship here in Houston, Texas at UT Health. After five years in the Valley, we were facing a cross-country move for just one year of training prior to his official start of building his own practice.

What’s Next?

This fellowship is just a one-year program, meaning that we are just here for one year while Andrew completes his training. So, what comes next? We really didn’t know what we wanted to do for a while because there are just a lot of options, and so much life to live! Ultimately, we decided to come back to the Lehigh Valley and Andrew signed with St. Luke’s prior to our leaving for fellowship. It wouldn’t be my place to give advice on this because it wasn’t my personal experience, but I will say that signing a contract at the end of residency provides a certain amount of comfort knowing that you have a place to land and you can begin to plan the next part of your life. For us, this was a decision driven mostly by my career. Andrew was so excited for me to start my own business and it has been really important to him that I have the opportunity throw myself into that passion full force. When we talked about our next steps, it was the foundation of my business that made me want to return to the Valley and continue that growth, and Andrew never questioned it – he’s so happy to see me doing what I love, and he knew that returning to St. Luke’s would be a huge opportunity for both of us. It doesn’t hurt that he got a really great opportunity in his new role – but we’ll save that for a future post when we are back in town.

How does fellowship work? Logistically?

Since we are just here for one year, we drove our two cars from Pennsylvania allllll the way to Texas. If you follow me on Instagram, you will remember this because it was just a lot of stories about how my car chair massager off of Amazon was the best investment I had ever made. I think this is still an accurate statement. I still brought way more clothes than necessary, but that was the bulk of our packing – clothes. The apartment was fully furnished and I figured that I would just diy any additional home decor if I felt inspired. You might be wondering, “Where did all of your other stuff go?” In a great stroke of luck, my sister had just moved to town and has been generous enough as to hold onto all of our other earthly possessions until we get back, which is no small feat. Clothes take up a lot more space than one would think, ‘one’ being me, and I did not think I had nearly as many clothes as it turns out I have.

The Married to Medicine Take

Again, a huge reason I wanted to do more than just post to Instagram was because I wanted to make conversations about marriage and how that works when you’re also going through this process more accessible. I remember following along with a blog by a woman engaged to be married to a man that she had been with through med school and residency and it abruptly ended because they cancelled the wedding. I had that same experience with a few other blogs, and unfortunately there is research that backs up these outcomes. Get this – as noted in the American Family Physician, divorce rates among married medical students are high, between 20% and 50% depending on the specialty area. I’m the type of person that carries around a decent amount of stress at any given time, so knowing that the numbers were not on our side was really daunting. When it comes to fellowship and the impacts that this process has had on our marriage, there’s a few things that stand out to me:

• Moving always sucks. It doesn’t matter what your profession is, this type of move doesn’t set any couple up for success. We had to move half of our stuff into my sister’s home up and down narrow staircases. We had to do it all piece-meal, making it feel like the process took forever. Nothing about the process was great because at the end of the day, moving isn’t fun but it is something easy to argue about and it definitely has the power to make people cranky and irritable. Not all fellowship opportunities would entail such a strange move, but in our situation, the move was certainly not ideal. Major thanks to my friends, family, and sister that made the process significantly less miserable than it would have been without them. I never forget how blessed I am!
• Remember what senioritis felt like? Well now you really will, because that’s what it feels like. From an outsider’s perspective, I’m watching Andrew have major ants in pants because as much as he wants to complete this additional training and hone his skills in specific areas, he also just wants to practice and have autonomy and pursue his passions. That’s hard to live and hard to watch someone live with. When we first arrived, it felt to me like it was a definite learning curve to go from a team that knows you and trusts you back to being the new guy and having to earn your way up. As it would with anyone, that gets annoying and put anyone in a bad mood.
• Being the new kid on the block can be hard. Having the opportunity to work from home, getting our feet on the ground here in Houston has been fine. It’s an entirely different personality and feel from anywhere that we’ve lived which is great in some ways and not as great in other ways. With more flexibility, I dove right into this community setting up my local haunts for coffee and wine and getting out to local shops and markets. I don’t think we’ll ever feel like this is “our” community, but once we figured out our spots, it’s easier to appreciate the weather and our new spot.
• No one wants to be lonely. We’ve had the luxury of living in places close to family or good friends and always feeling like we had a family of support. I think everyone enjoys that – whether its the family you are born into or the one that you create, everyone wants that safety net to share in the good times and turn to in the bad times. It has been difficult for me to be so far from friends and family in such a temporary situation. Andrew knows that I support him and that we are both all-in on this journey, so it’s hard for him to see me upset or homesick. It’s been difficult to navigate that as a couple because we are so different in this aspect, so we’ve really had to stay focused on continuing to strengthen our communication and be understanding of one another and how we differ. SO MUCH EASIER said than done, but if you can at least set those things as your goals, you’ll be on the right track. If you could be a fly on our wall, you would hear the same inane arguments of any normal couple and you’d see ridiculous behavior spurred on by the fact that our condo is tiny and there is quite literally nowhere to go. It is what it is – everyone argues, everyone says something stupid or mean to their spouse in a bad moment, and every couple goes through highs and lows – don’t ever let the social media highlight reels make you feel any differently. For everyone happy couple photo, there’s the photo that wasn’t taken of their last argument where they both thought the other person was a complete ass. That’s just real life.

That is that.

Being at this stage in the journey, it feels good to be so close to the end! That being said, I want to recount as much as I can while the memories are fresh, but there really are so many different aspects of this process that I could cover. If you want me to elaborate on anything specifically, please send me an email! It would be so great to focus my energies on the parts that would be most helpful for you since that is my whole intention behind this platform. You can shoot a message right over to me at classicallychriste@gmail.com or DM me on Instagram @classicallychriste and I will answer whatever I can.

So, is Andrew a real doctor?

In the literal sense, yes. But, I’m definitely looking forward to the day that he finally gets to start to build his practice and put all of this training to good use and pursue his passion. Seeing him achieve his dreams is something I am really looking forward to, and I feel really grateful and fortunate to have the opportunity to be by his side for that.