Travels in Virginia

A few days ago I posted a not-so-uplifting post about the dregs of job hunting. I really need a place to vent all my frustrations, partially so that I could better move forward in the job search.

Alas, some fruit.

Paul went to Tulsa, Oklahoma for an interview on Tuesday, February 13. The interview went well enough. He enjoyed the radiology group and felt like we could be happy there. But there were a few drawbacks. He wouldn’t be able to perform the entire spectrum of what an interventional radiologist (IR) can do...their practice was rather limited. And, instead of working with numerous IR docs, he would mostly be on his own, working at one of many satellite hospitals.

Paul was really looking for somewhat of a mentorship with his first job - during those first few years out of fellowship, it’s really a time to hone your skills and really settle into it. Also, fellowships don’t train you in every IR procedure out there, so he wanted to find a place that could provide him with additional training. You might wonder how, after 10 years of medical training, he still wouldn't know some of the stuff he would need to know. This happens because there is some crossover between IR and vascular surgery; for example, at some hospitals, interventional radiology with perform particular, whereas somewhere else, vascular surgeons will do it. Depending on where you train, you will learn different procedures, depending on what kind of a hospital it is (trauma, cancer, etc). Also, depending on the relative age of your colleagues, and when and where they trained, will also affect the types of cases that you will do.

After that interview, he thought Tulsa would be okay, but not ideal. The following Monday, he interviewed in Richmond, Virginia.

I decided to go with him. Partly because we could go a day early to see his 3 siblings in Williamsburg, and partly because on Tuesday, he would be interviewing in Winchester, VA, in northern Virginia. I figured I would like visiting these places where we might live, and, knowing my husband, he would be happier and enjoy his trip more if he weren’t alone.

Sunday afternoon we arrived in Williamsburg (after a Delta flight with my own personal TV...I just loved being able to watch whatever I wanted and not pay for it. I watched Thor Ragnorak again...sorry...needless aside...it was awesome though). We ate Sunday dinner with Aaron, Tandy, Erika, Steve, and Christina, with 10 nieces and nephews running in circles around the room. We talked of how awesome it would be if we ended up in VA, and how odd, considering none of us really ever planned on being East Coasters. It was then that I realized that I really hoped that the Richmond job was Paul’s favorite. I wanted to be nearer to these people. It was so fun and relaxing being around them. We had always dreamed of being in the mountains, but can mountains really compare to being with family that you love?

I dropped Paul off at his interview the next morning, while I bummed around Richmond for the rest of the day. I stopped at Wegman’s, exchanged the rental car for a different one, lunched alone at a French bistro, and visited the Virginia Art Museum to see the Terracotta Warrior exhibit. It really was amazing. I got goosebumps all over when I walked into the room. To imagine the time and dedication of the craftsman to creative thousands of distinct faces and features. To remember how old they are and how well preserved. It was inspiring to think of all that went into their creation, and that I was able to view them so simply. I longed more than ever before to travel to China to see the entire army together.

When I picked Paul up, he immediately began to tell me all the good things about the group...the variety of cases they do, the personalities of the other radiologists, the benefits, etc. It was all positive. If anything, he was overwhelmed by how much he would have to learn to be up to speed with the rest of the group, since they do the entire spectrum of IR procedures, including all the stuff shared with vascular surgeons, as well as old-school procedures and new-school stuff.

When the group heard that I was coming to town as well, they decided to take us out to dinner (I think my coming showed them that we were pretty interested in moving there). We met up with 4 interventionalists and their wives for dinner. It was fun to converse with his possible future colleagues. We’ve never been very social with Paul’s coworkers, preferring instead to spend time with family or close friends, so it was fun to see how easily we fell into conversation. I could see why Paul had been so excited after his interview - at the prospect of working with people whom he really enjoyed.

Dinner went late...til about 9:30. So we got a late start on our 2.5 hour drive to Winchester. Gratefully his interview wasn’t until 10 the next morning, so we had time to sleep in and wander around this quaint little town on the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley. While he interviewed, I drove around the countryside, imagining having an orchard, letting our kids run all over the backyard, having a dog (!), living in a town of 20,000, and adapting to small-town living. When I picked him up that afternoon, he told me pretty quickly that it wasn’t quite what he was looking for. Like Tulsa, they didn’t do a lot of procedures that he would like to do, and he wouldn’t really get that mentorship on new procedures like he hoped. Plus, if we were going to live on the East Coast, we would rather be only 45 minutes from Williamsburg family instead of 3 hours. On our drive to the DC airport, he pretty much said he would go with the job in Richmond.

That was Tuesday afternoon. I expected him to contact Richmond on Wednesday to let them know his decision. But no. He continued to hem and haw about it. Debating location with pay with amenities with procedures with family time to partnership with cost of living with everything. I kept asking if he was going to text them, and he kept saying, “It’s such a big decision!” with which I heartily agreed. I stopped asking when he was going to respond to them, making sure that he came to the conclusion on his own.

Finally, on Saturday morning, after discussing it with me one final time, and realizing that this really was the perfect job (except that we wouldn’t have mountains close), he texted his contact there, saying that if they would have him, he would take the position. Hilariously enough, after that he kept checking his phone every minute to see if he responded. Luckily he didn’t have to wait to long. His contact said that they had already voted to hire him.

Huge sigh of relief. And let the excitement and planning begin!

We had always planned to live in the West - in the mountains more than anything. But here we are, planning a move to a place I never thought I’d live. And I am thrilled to be moving there. Why? Because family is way better than the mountains. Because we are pretty certain that he will love the work that he is doing...and if your husband is happy at work, he’s happier ALL the time. Because Virginia is beautiful! It reminds me so much of Wisconsin, without mountains of snow and subzero temperatures. And it’s almost the same size as Milwaukee. I think I’ll feel right at home.

Fruitless

This is a hard topic to write about. Mostly because after 10 years, we still don't have a job.

About a year ago, I started hounding my husband, asking him over and over when we were supposed to start looking for a job. He talked to a few people in Milwaukee, who all said we should start looking after we start fellowship. So, in August, I started checking radiology job boards 2 or 3 times a day, looking for interventional radiology jobs in areas we would like to live. Pretty much, we want to live in the West...Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Wyoming. We would even consider Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. And if desperate, Nevada and California. We haven't been too interested in being farther east, since we love the mountains and would like to be closer to family.

I even spent about 2 weeks cold-calling radiology groups in those states, asking if they knew about their upcoming radiology needs. Pretty much everyone said they didn't plan to hire.

So I searched the job boards harder. We applied in Hawaii, Arizona, Oregon, and Colorado, and got a few phone interviews. But with no result. They either haven't gotten back with us, or we realized they wouldn't be a good fit.

Paul wants to spend 60-70% of his time doing interventional radiology (IR), which is a completely different beast from general diagnostic radiology. And some of the places he talked with could only promise about 30% IR. Maybe some day he will want to tone his work-load down and do more diagnostic work, but not his first year out of fellowship. These first few years are really the time in which he will hone his IR skills, so he wants to do as much as possible.

Then over Christmas, the perfect job came on the market. Kalispell, Montana. I know that may not sound like heaven to everyone out there, but image living at the base of Glacier National Park. (I was going to insert some pictures of Kalispell, but there were too many good ones to choose from, so google it.)  The town is small, yet because of its remoteness and proximity to Glacier, it surprisingly has lots of amenities. Paul had a great phone interview, 90 minutes long. The job was perfect. Just what he was looking for, twice the vacation time everyone else offers, and more pay than we had expected. We hoped and prayed that no one else wanted to live in paradise.

Two weeks passed, and nothing. Finally we emailed, just to see if they were even still considering him. Gratefully, he is 1 of 5 that they are considering, but they are giving preference to doctors with a little more experience and who have ties to the area. So...we are probably 5th on that list.

To say the least, we have been deflated. To have had the perfect job in our grasp and to lose it. Technically, they might still contact us, but who would ever pass up such a perfect spot?

So now, I continue to trudge through the job boards daily, now applying pretty much anywhere in the country because we are at the point that we just need a stinking job! Even after spending an evening with friends who were telling us all about their great radiology experience with a group in Tulsa that they loved, it was hard to be excited about it, knowing it can never quite match Kalispell in sheer awesomeness.

We have realized that we will likely have to settle for something not-so-awesome. I'm sure we will learn to love any place, like Lubbock and Milwaukee. But now that we finally have a say in where we get to live, I wanted to actually WANT to live there.

At least he has in-person interviews set-up in Tulsa, OK and Richmond, VA...both okay places, but not ideal.

I'm still trying to figure out what I've learned, if anything, from all of this.

I wish we would have started looking 6 months earlier.

I wish we would have contacted groups in cities we were interested in sooner, and 'courted' them a little.

I wish more people needed to hire interventionalists this year.

I wish we had a job.