I’ve posted threads along similar lines before, but my circumstances have changed somewhat, and I’m in even more of a dilemma now than I was.
I start my residency in just over a year. I’m leaning toward general internal medicine now, and there’s a program like that in just about any city you could name. I want to find a cool place to spend 3 years, but since I’ve lived within a 100-mile radius for my entire 25 years, it’s a mind-boggling proposition.
So, where should I go? What do you like about the place where you live?
Some of the pertinent info:
–I have lived in Lexington, KY ever since I graduated high school. The size (~300,000) is nice, and the university provides diversity and cultural opportunity. I don’t want to live anyplace smaller than Lexington. Larger is good, although I’m not sure I’m ready for the scale of, say, NYC/LA/Chicago.
–I detest cookie-cutter living situations. I don’t want to live in a postage-stamp suburb or any sort of “planned community”. I need a place with some personality.
–I will probably be living with my GF. We have no kids and no plans to have any.
–Climate is not terribly important. The GF would prefer warmer and I would prefer colder, but we’re both flexible.
I honestly have to say that LA isnt a bad move. It’s a bit crowded but its not intimidating and I meet great people everytime I visit there. Uhm. Santa Barbara, San Diego and San Francisco are BEAUTIFUL cities although the cost of living is a bit high.
I live in Phoenix myself. But if you’re looking for something colder, I dont think this’d be the place. Albeit a beautiful desert during monsoon and a lovely place to be in the winter. It lacks history and style.
Boston is FULL of charm and history, but the people seem a bit pushy.
I like the idea of Boston, because I’ve heard great things about it. Never been there myself.
I’d recommend Seattle. Big city, beautiful summers, not a lot of snow in the winter, and the scenery is unbeatable. You just have to get through the rainy months.
I second Boston. I’ve lived nearby for about 3 years now, and in all honesty, it’s not that bad of a place. There’s lots to do, transportation is fairly cheap (you can ride the T for like $3 or something), and there are lots of little suburbs that would provide reasonable housing. The weather is cold in the winter, reaonable the rest of the year. Traffic in the city sucks though. There’s way too many people trying to get to the same places.
As much as I’ve slagged LA on this board, I must confess that it is a cool place to live near (I live in Pasadena, a pretty, average-sized city just outside LA). Moving from east to here is perhaps the biggest paradigm shift you can get without leaving the English-speaking part of the continent.
I loved Seattle too, although I’ve never lived there. I did live in Vancouver, BC and I imagine they’re much the same as cities go.
Oh, and I have a soft spot for Prague.
Don’t be afraid to just pick up and move, especially if you know it’s only for a few years. I’ve crossed this continent three times already, and am just about to do it again, and I’ve never regretted the moves.
If it is possible for you to live outside the U.S. I would highly recommend Munich, Germany. A million people live in this gorgeous city, but it often feels like a “town”. The Alps are an hour away, as are countless lakes - fantastic for summer days. Speaking of which, I just got back from an afternoon at one of the many beergardens…you CANNOT beat the beer here. If that isn’t enough, you would be living smack! - in the middle of Europe. Next weekend we are traveling to Milan for a football match, the weekend after to Copenhagen for a birthday party. Possibilities for travel are great…
am I sounding like a travel agent?
And of course - there is Oktoberfest every year. That in itself is reason enough to live here.
. . another vote for San Francisco . . beautiful city . . still enough interesting people (the rest have left due to the high cost of living) . . . great weather . . and the average rents for apartments have gone down . . an average one bedroom is now $1160/month instead of $1200 a couple of months ago . yeah! :rolleyes:
Plus, you have the world class Stanford and UCSF Medical Centers here . . .
Pluses – beautiful scenery and nearby mountain recreation opportunities, a vibrant downtown, healthy neighborhoods, clean and very safe, proactive urban planning, a highly educated population, an open minded citizenry, plenty of jobs, and no shortage of high culture.
Minuses – extremely high cost of housing (renting an okay apartment is still doable, but single family home prices are approaching Los Angeles/San Diego levels), increasing pretentiousness (think San Francisco and Seattle), horrific traffic (50% of which are SUVs), lots of planned communities (there’s few subdivisions with just a few new houses; almost every new development is done on a grand scale, with hundreds of not tens of thousands of new houses, so it’s doubtful that you’ll like the cities of Aurora, Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville, or Douglas County), a sense of isolation (nearest large metros, excluding the Theocracy of Colorado Springs, are Salt Lake City, Kansas City, and Albuquerque), and the highest airfares in the country. If you’re overweight, you’ll stick out like a sore thumb.
I wold have stayed in Denver if I could find the job of my dreams. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the place. In many ways, I regret my move to Florida, but it couldn’t have been avoided.
I like the idea of Boston, Colorado, and the Pacific Northwest. One problem is that residents make about the same amount of money no matter where they end up, so you can live like a king in Lower Assboink or like a pauper in the Bay Area.
California residencies are notoriously hard to get, because everyone in CA wants to stay and everyone else wants to go there.
I love New Orleans, and I can really picture myself as a NO local. The only problem with it is Charity Hospital–a big, scary place on the cutting edge of 19th century technology. It has caused PTSD in many an intern.
San Antonio and Austin sound cool, with that one glaring issue–it’s freakin’ hot.
I’ve recommended Rochester, NY to others. In your particular case, it not only is a good place to live, but it also has a first rate hospital in Strong Memorial. And overly hot won’t be an issue.
One of my favorite cities in the US would have to be Asheville, North Carolina. I used to live there (born & raised in NC, actually). It’s very laid back, and very beautiful, located in the mountains of Western North Carolina. The population is smaller than Lexington (fewer than 100,000 last time I checked), but it’s incredibly diverse. There’s a university, a baseball team, a large artist community, lots and lots of nature, the downtown area is absolutely booming, and getting better every day. There are no real “suburbs” that I’ve ever seen around the city, but there are plenty of gorgeous places to live within 30 minutes drive to downtown. My stepmother is a registered nurse (and aspiring potter) there, and I’ve also had some experience with the medical community which was all-in-all a good experience (if you make it down there and happen to meet a rheumatologist named Steven Mendelsohn, tell him Jesse said “Hi”).
I don’t recommend Los Angeles. I live near LA now, and if you like the more laid back areas of the east coast, this is no comparison. Most of southern california just pales in comparison to most places I’ve visited on the east coast. If you want to move to the west coast, go to Oregon (they don’t like Californians much, but they might accept someone from Kentucky).
I’ve never lived in Tampa, but I’ve been there, and if I could arrange to live there I would. It’s close to so much cool stuff! And Florida, so far as I’ve seen, is pretty high on the diversity-meter, kind of like California. The “freakin’ hot” issue would definitely crop up there, too, though, I would think, since the whole time I was there it never dropped below 90 degrees, even at night . . . maybe someone who has lived there could shed more light . . .
I’ll put in another good word for Boston. Certainly there are many good hospitals to choose from, including several that are world class in certain fields (IIRC, at least two hospitals here are number 1 in a given field). The other thing there are a lot of is colleges.
The drawbacks are the price and the difficulty of driving in the city. Other than that, it’s a wonderful city, with the advantages of a big city, but not quite the New York sort of atmosphere.
Another Texas city you should consider is Fort Worth. Lots of personality, very comfortable, great cultural institutions (Kimbell Art Museum, Bass Hall, et al.), excellent Mexican food, not too crowded (yet!), very affordable, close enough to Dallas when needed (i.e., sporting events, concerts, etc.)
Kepi – great mexican food in texas, surely you jest…
I’d throw the wonderful city of Albuquerque, NM into the mix. Its a relatively small city (about 600,000 I believe)
The city is very friendly. We sit right on the south end of the Rockies, so the mountains are literally a 20 minute drive away. It dosent get terribly hot during the summer. It only breaks 100 a handful of days. During the winter its not terribly cold. The city is never snowed in, and I cannot recall the last time the high did not break freezing. The food is absolutely wonderful here
University of New Mexico Hospital is the only level one trauma center in the entire state. There is an oppertunity to practice damn near any type of medicine at UNMH. Also, there is a disportionally large population that is of low income, so there is a good chance to practice medicine on the chronically sick due to lack of care…
