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

I had a nice pharmaceutical mug for the last few years that advertised Oxycontin. One side of the mug contained heat sensitive text. It read, “The one to start with”. When heated, a phrase would appear, spelling out “The one to stay with.” I initially used it as my coffee mug. After several years, the handle started to crack, presumably from the times it bumped the faucet when I washed it in my tiny sink in Bard Hall. I kept it as a utensil holder afterward, since I could not part with it.

Today I parted with the mug. It was too much to carry with me in my move. I wonder if I’ll ever find a mug as cool as this.

medicine life, medicine

Bad outcomes do occur on the roadway. Several weeks ago as I was driving to the airport on I-95 around 3:30am, a white Infiniti I20 whizzed past me on the left lane. The roads were slick from a constant torrent that had been ongoing from the night before. I was cruising around 55mph–I’d say the guy in the Infiniti was speeding closer to 80mph. About 15 minutes later, I approached a police and ambulance barricade. The Infiniti was upside down, with its front hood smashed in the concrete barrier on the left lane. A Cutlass station wagon was adjacent, with its driver’s side door crumpled.

I could hear the siren of an ambulance wailing off in the distance. I wondered if the driver was dead, but I supposed the ambulance would have kept kept its siren off if the patient were definitively dead.

While I don’t who is at fault, this is yet another reason why you shouldn’t drive 80mph in foggy, rainy weather with 50ft visibility ahead.

misc life, rant

Occasionally I dabble on the piano. One of my ambitions is to advance my limited piano abilities, although over the past few years (and next decade) it’s become difficult to fit the piano in my schedule. Those of you who are musicians will probably agree that after a certain level, the time commitment required to improve becomes exponential (unless you’re a wunderkind). Today I recorded the theme to Schubert’s Impromptu in Bb, Opus 142, No. 3. The work is written in a theme and variation format. It is a melodic piece with limited/no virtuoso runs, suitable for my digital piano. Recorded on a Casio CDP-100 using a pass-through cable to my IBM Thinkpad T42 laptop. Software recording with Audacity, and mp3 encoded using LAME. No editing involved.

misc hobbies, life