Every so often I overhear unruly commentary from various hospital staff about the doctors. The ones from environmental services are particularly colorful, even more so now that I’m in NYC.

“F-cking docs,” I heard one custodian mutter as he was cleaning up some coffee cups strewn about in the emergency room.

Other times I hear commentary among the cleaning crews about how good we [residents/doctors] “have it”, with our fancy clothes and expensive tastes.

There is a food stand in the lobby of our hospital. As residents, we receive $10 worth of food while on call. I believe that the cashier has gotten wind that we don’t pay for anything up to $10 from the way we stock up on beverages.

There is a cashier working on weekends who appears to be passively aggressive towards our “luxuries”. For the last three weekends I’ve been on call, I’ve always gotten 4 sodas ($1.50 ea) and 4 bags of chips ($1.00 ea). This should naturally ring up as $10, but the register magically rings up as $10.05 every time she is working the register. On weeknights that I’ve gotten the exact same items, I have never been asked to supplement my purchase with an additional 5 cents.

I haven’t attempted to rationalize with her on the absurdity of the purchases. There’s not even a $0.05 tag to any of the items I purchase.

misc

One of the disadvantages of living in a building without a doorman is that you never know for certain whether you’ll receive any packages in the mail. Given that I am not home during daylight hours on every weekday, I can never be present to sign for a UPS/FedEx package.

I ordered an important textbook last week, and apparently the UPS carrier attempted to deliver it twice without success. The first time, he left a note on my apartment door stating that he will reattempt delivery tomorrow. I left a note on my door asking him to leave it with my neighbor or at my doorstep. The second day, he left a note OUTSIDE my building stating that he will reattempt one more time. Dammit.

I called UPS that evening to hold my package for pickup, but never received a callback. I called the central office, and they told me that the UPS center in my area (Bronx) doesn’t have working phones, but I could go by within the next 15 minutes to pick it up. Given that a direct cab ride to the service center would take at least 20 minutes, I told them to reattempt deliver to ANYONE in my building the next and final time.

Later that evening (9:30pm), I heard my doorbell ring. My hopes rose as I thought that the UPS carrier had doubled back on his delivery route.

Two teenage guys dressed in starched shirts and black pants and tie greeted me at my door. One was carrying a thick, leather-bound book with gold embellishments on the edges of the pages.

“Ni hao!” one of them exclaimed.

They must have understood my disgust through my body language, and handed me a card with an address to their establishment in town.

If the UPS man were only so fortuitous in his deliveries…

misc humor, rant

I took a bunch of wine cases from a wine superstore to use as packing material. Wine boxes are great shipping containers; they pack a sturdy 32 lbs/sq in. cardboard. This comes with no surprise, since wine is heavy. The sides come with substantial padding that is great for packing electronic equipment.

However, apparently you cannot ship wine (or parcels in wine packaging) through UPS without a license. Doh! Fortunately the guy at the UPS Store was kind enough to repack my boxes in a discrete cardboard box for a nominal fee.

misc life

One of my initial concerns in location of residency training was the cost. A metropolitan area like New York City and San Francisco comes with a hefty cost of living price tag. Do I want to pay $800 a month for a 2 bedroom gated condominium with swimming pool and tennis courts in Augusta, Georgia, or $2000 a month for a closet in Manhattan? While you should probably focus more on the quality of program and location in residency training, an extra $1200 a month in savings can be applied to important use (like repaying loans).

In retrospect, the cost differential isn’t as significant as I initially thought; the salaries are usually somewhat proportional to cost of living. One of my friends training in Boston ended up with similar funds as I did, simply because he had a higher salary and did not have a car to maintain. He’s now moving to Los Angeles, which is a sprawling freeway wasteland with traditionally crappy resident salaries.

I gave the salary issue a more quantitative analysis, and indeed it holds true to a certain extent. Take, for instance, the medicine residency program at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Medical Center in NYC. For 2009, the PGY-2 salary is $58,463.  A subsidized studio runs about $1,600/month near the hospital. Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore pays its PGY-2 residents $44,192. An apartment in Baltimore away from the ghetto will cost at least $1,000 a month. The nearly $14,000 annual salary difference in NYC ought to cover the extra housing costs and hefty city taxes. In addition, you’d have to maintain a car in Baltimore.

But wait, you’re comparing a Yugo to a Rolls-Royce! Indeed, higher profile academic centers will still draw residents despite being in a seedy location and offering a lousy benefits package. It actually depends on the city.  MEEI offers a PGY-2 salary of approximately $52,000. Doheny offers a PGY-2 salary of $48,000, but a PGY-3 receives an extra $5,000 annually.

Ultimately, the end result is negligible. Instead, you should ask yourself whether you can tolerate living in a cramped apartment instead of a suburban home with a yard. Can you handle living in Utah if you typically spend your Friday nights at the bar? Or can you handle waiting in line for hours in Central Park to play tennis (don’t forget to buy a public tennis pass, or you’ll be fined!)?

economy, misc life, money

I found a photo from an ice sculpture carving competition I attended in 2007 up in Cooperstown, NY. Around that time, we experienced about 2 – 3 ft of snowfall in the course of one evening. Those were fun times.

misc life, photos