Wedding band

One down, one to go.

I mentioned that the price of palladium had suddenly become very interesting to me. That's because I requested that Philip Haas, the jeweler Eric used to make my engagement ring, make me a wedding band in palladium to match, and I was afraid that the custom piece might be pricey.

I started my wedding band search at the mall jewelry stores, and one day this past summer, I found one I really really liked, at Zales:
It was a 1/4-carat TDW (total diamond weight) shared prong white gold band. It was really nice. The diamond quality was G/H/I (mixed; no guarantee) color, I1 clarity. Since I found it at a Zales in New Jersey, I took down the item number to save.

In January, I bought it at my local mall, and brought it to Philip.

Yeah, I'm sneaky like that. I made sure there was a good return policy (full refund within 30 days, store credit within 60 days), first, just in case. The Zales ring was much too big (I avoided getting it sized right away like they wanted me to by making up a story about needing to show it to my mom, who was only visiting for a couple of days...), and had 13 diamonds. Philip and I decided to shrink that down to 11 diamonds to accommodate my finger size in a nice-looking way (I have a size 4.5 ring finger!). I placed my order, and a few weeks later, I had this:


Sorry the detail isn't that great; my camera doesn't have a very good macro lens. In any case, it's perfect! Palladium, to match my engagement ring, with 11 diamonds totaling .21 carats (the diamonds are the same size each as the Zales ring, but there are only 11 instead of 13), of G color and VS2 clarity. Exactly what I wanted, made especially for me. And the best part? It was only $80 more than the Zales ring! (I know that palladium is less expensive now than white gold, but my stones are of a significantly better quality, to more closely match my solitaire, so I think it evens out... plus the fact that it was custom work, of course!) I returned the Zales ring successfully, and my devious plan worked.

Here are the two rings together:

They aren't an identical matched set, but I like it that way. Each can stand on its own, but they work very well together at the same time.

Now we just need a ring for Eric. We'd go back to Philip Haas for that one, too, but since Eric won't be around here again until two days before the wedding, I'm not sure that's going to work out logistically, so we'll be shopping around in Philly/NJ, probably. Maybe a mall jewelry store ring would be fine. Plus, I just talked to the husband of a classmate of mine who recently accidentally lost his wedding ring, and he says that a guy's first ring should be like his first car: It shouldn't be a Mercedes. He had bought his ring at Kohl's, just in case, which turned out to be a good idea. I'm not sure what I think of that theory; I'm willing to give Eric more credit than that :)

Careers and Marriage

For pretty much my entire career to this point, I have been pursuing my end goal as an individual, by myself. Of course, Eric has long been there to provide support outside of school, and he definitely makes the social rounds with me and my med school friends (honestly, I'm pretty sure some of my friends like him more than they like me!), but in my official role as a future physician, it's just been me, myself, and I.

Until now.

I've heard horror stories about med students being grilled about their relationships and/or future family aspirations, and I've even heard about some med students taking off their engagement/wedding rings while on the interview trail, so prospective employers don't question their commitment to the job. Certain specialties, for sure, are less family-friendly than others, and I can definitely imagine that a single female surgery applicant might be more appealing to a program director than a married female surgery applicant; fewer distractions to draw them away from a 100-hour work week. On the whole, though, Ob/Gyn is pretty family-friendly (well, the people are pretty tolerant of families, even though the work schedule is decidedly not so), so it never really occurred to me to hide the fact that I am getting married.

In fact, I am using my relationship to my advantage. You see, it might look odd to some program directors to see an applicant from Kentucky applying to small programs on the east coast. And indeed, on both of the interviews I've been to so far, I got some pretty probing questions about why the heck I wanted to come to New Jersey/DC. But everyone was satisfied to hear that both my fiance and I hailed from the east coast and were looking to return. And, in fact, that my fiance is already working on the east coast and that I'm hoping to join him.

And while I'm happy to handle all of those relocation/marriage questions (none of them so far have even come close to being illegal) myself, I'm realizing that Eric has a role to play in all of this as well.

Most programs have a night-before-the-interview social event where you can meet the current residents in a more informal setting. And a lot of those programs say that I am welcome to bring a guest (implied: spouse/significant other) to the social event if I would like. Due to his work schedule, Eric will unlikely be able to come to very many of them, but I definitely get the sense that these programs are, in fact, looking for residents who have happy outside lives and are willing to create a work environment that fosters continued happy outside lives -- great for me!

And then I came across this article from the NY Times, which discusses the role of the spouse in the job application process. Of course, much to my chagrin, it talks solely about the female spouses of male job applicants, but whatever. What I did find interesting was the idea that the spouse herself could play a deciding factor in the applicant's success. To be honest, it makes sense, although it's a little scary because I have never thought of it before. And as much as I am not a traditional type of person, the majority of medicine is still very much seated in tradition, and I can imagine that spouses are secretly of interest to residency programs, in both a positive and negative sense.

In fact, while on my OB rotation last month, the upper-level residents were discussing interview diners and were saying they always instructed their own spouses to talk up the spouses of the interviewees. And sometimes, the spouses shared information that was of use to the residents. Like, for instance, the spouse that disclosed that they really wanted to stay in their home state of ___, but that our program was strong, so the interviewee was checking it out. Oops.

So I have instructed Eric on what he can and cannot say during any significant other vetting situations. Luckily, I only applied to two programs outside of our desired geographical region, and I'm only keeping one of those interviews (my home program), and Eric can't come to the dinner. And of course, I've already shared with a few different people here that I'm not really trying to stay, so it doesn't matter anyway -- I've already shot myself in my own foot on that front.

But, whew, this process is exhausting! Explaining how I got to Kentucky, and why I want to leave, and making sure Eric sticks to his script as well, is a lot more than I thought I would have to deal with. All this for a job. That allows me to have a happy marriage.

Real Men Wear Gowns

So... it turns out I'll look at anything that shows a woman wearing a veil and a white dress.

I was browsing through CNN.com today and noticed an ad off on the sidebar that showed a woman wearing a veil. The ad read, "Real men wear gowns," and standing in front of her was a man wearing ... not a wedding gown, but a hospital gown.

Weddings AND health? Now you've got my interest!

I clicked on over, and it brought me to the website of AHRQ (the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), which I am already familiar with (they publish healthcare data and put out guidelines for preventive health screening; I use their electronic preventive services selector on my PDA regularly). But I hadn't heard about this health campaign before.

Real Men Wear Gowns is aimed at middle-aged men, it appears (based on the images, information, and videos), but its message is important for all men. It shows guys doing normal things -- playing with their kids, walking their daughters down the aisle, dancing with their wives -- while wearing a hospital gown. You can watch the videos here.


A screenshot from one of the videos.

Men are notorious, as a group, for not going to the doctor until they're very sick -- at which point, valuable opportunities to prevent disease onset or provide early treatment have been lost. It's a stereotype -- but one I've seen numerous times -- to have a male patient say, when asked why he came to the office/ER, "I wasn't going to, but my wife made me." And these are guys who often are in the midst of a serious problem -- like an active heart attack!

Too often, men try to "bear the pain," or "see if it will go away." But they shouldn't. Know the warning signs of heart attacks and strokes, and get screened regularly for overweight/obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension, colorectal cancer, STDs and HIV, depression, and AAA. Tell your fiance, brother, father, FFIL, and anyone else you know the importance of these tests. Really.

It's perfectly reasonable for a young person to have a cholesterol test done once before the age of 25 -- you should know your cholesterol score! It's better to start cutting out a cheeseburger a week and replacing it with something high in fiber now than it is to wait until you're 40 and have 20 years of damage built up.

And women, don't think you're out of the loop; there is a site for Real Women, too. Get Pap tests regularly, get the HPV vaccine, and see an Ob/Gyn before you get pregnant -- there are a lot of things that ideally should be done before a woman gets pregnant, but since so many pregnancies are unplanned, they aren't done until the first obstetrical visit. Start taking a folic acid supplement now; there's no reason not to. And of course, get all the same screening tests as the men -- hypertension, high cholesterol, colorectal cancer, HIV, etc.

Because you're planning to marry your sweetheart for life, and I know you want it to be a long and healthy one.

Name change?

In the four weeks we've been engaged, the three questions I've been asked most frequently are:
1. Have you picked a date?
2. Where are you going to get married?
3. Are you going to change your name?

The answers to 1 and 2 are May 2009, hopefully Memorial Weekend, somewhere in Louisville.

The answer to #3 is a bit more complicated, and I'm surprised by how often people ask me about it.

Growing up, I had mixed feelings about changing my name when I got married. I don't have a problem becoming Mrs. So-and-so, because I think it's ingrained enough in our society (and so many other societies) that it's a natural thing to do. I don't have a problem with women who keep their names either, but it's low down on my own feminist issues list. However, whenever I've imagined my name as a physician, I've always imagined becoming Dr. MaidenName, because when I was 12, I didn't have any other last name to put behind the title Doctor. So now I'm stuck. Do I become Dr. So-and-so or stick with Dr. MaidenName?

Right off the bat, I have to tell you that I don't like the idea of hyphenating. Especially not with our last names, which are both two syllables and eight letters long. What a pain for bubbling into Scantrons! I knew someone in high school whose parents combined their names to make a new family surname, and it worked pretty well, I guess mostly because I didn't know either of her parents before they were married so I didn't think it sounded weird. There are a couple iterations of combining our names that don't sound horrendous, but I'm still not a big fan of the idea. My paternal grandfather is really involved with our family genealogy (traceable back to 1635, when Isaac MaidenName came to Ipswich, MA), and I'm glad no one in the family changed their surname between then and now to make tracing our roots more difficult (although, yes, records of those things always exist). FH's (geez, am I really using these wedding abbreviations already?) family name is also easily recognizable as having come from a particular country/region, and I respect that as well, so I wouldn't want to combine our names into a new one and lose those heritages. Bottom line, it's just weird.

It used to be that it was very difficult to get your name changed on your medical license, so that women kept whichever last name they had when they graduated, to avoid licensing hassles. I don't think this is as much of a problem now, but I'm not sure. I've also heard the argument that it is very difficult for female physicians to re-establish themselves if they change their names. Thus, if they begin their careers as Dr. MaidenName and then get married and become Dr. So-and-so, they tend to lose a lot of peripheral referrals and professional contacts. Similarly, women who start out as Dr. So-and-so and then get divorced often keep their former husband's last name for the sake of their practices. So I used to say that if my career had gotten off the ground by the time I got married, that would be reason enough to keep my maiden name professionally. Needless to say, I never did publish my master's thesis, and even if I had, I'm sure no one would be looking it up on PubMed and trying to correlate it with my future publications, so that argument is out.

In all likelihood, I will graduate from medical school before we get married, so that might be argument enough to keep my maiden name professionally, but in reality, I probably will not have applied for my medical license by the time I get married, so there would still be time to make a change if I wanted to. And if I did change my name, right after graduation would be a perfect time to do it, because I would be known as Dr. So-and-so beginning with my first hospital. (And obviously, I'm not planning on getting divorced.)

In the setting of the field of medicine I think there are other factors to consider. My friend, an internal medicine intern getting married to another medicine intern in April, says she is going to change her name so that people always know that her hot husband is married to her, another physician working in the same hospital, who hears the same gossip everyone else does. This will decrease any chance that a nurse might try to make a move on him, thinking that his wife would never know. OK, that's a little silly, but it is nice to instantaneously tie yourself personally and professionally to a colleague by way of the same name. "I just met Dr. Tim Williams. Is he by any chance married to Dr. Jennifer Williams in medicine? That's what I thought!"

On the other hand, two Dr. Williams can create confusion. "Do you mean Dr. Williams the internist or Dr. Williams the gastroenterologist?" (This often happens with father/son physicians. "Dr. Johnson-the-ENT senior or junior?") At my school, we refer to "Dr. Mr. Lastname" vs. "Dr. Mrs. Lastname." In any case, I don't need to worry about this, because FH is not going to be a physician.

But what if FH becomes a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter or White House correspondent, and I actually do run for public office? Is there any sense in keeping our names different just to make it that much harder for nosy people to link us together? Probably not. It will still be pretty obvious that we're married, so what does it matter which names we have? And any potential conflict of interest posed by the fact that I'm a politician and he's in journalism would have to be addressed regardless of our names, so it's a moot point. (This paragraph is a little facetious. I talk a lot about running for public office someday, but I really don't know if that's a serious threat or not.)

A lot of women move their maiden name to their middle name when they take their husband's last name, but I don't really like the idea of that, either. It works well when your given middle name is just another "regular" name without any family meaning, but my maiden name is my mother's maiden name, and I am one of the few people who can pass it on (I have one male cousin who will be passing on the name to his children, but that's it). It also ties me to that side of my heritage, so I don't want to give it up (it's essentially the only proof I have of being half-Chinese, because I don't look it at all!). So making my maiden name my middle name is out of the question. And so is having two middle names; let's not be ridiculous, people.

Now, in case you're wondering, I definitely want our kids to have their father's last name. I don't have a good argument for or against it, but it just seems right to me. So then do I want to be the only one in the family without the same last name and be left out? Probably not.

So I think I've come up with a solution. I'm going to be Dr. MaidenName, which has been my goal and dream for 26 (by then, 28) years. But socially, I'll be Mrs. So-and-so, and introduce myself that way. Letters can come addressed to Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so (or Mr. So-and-so and Dr. MaidenName if the addressers feel so inclined). Our kids' friends can call me Mrs. So-and-so when they come over to our house. But most importantly, if people mix things up and call me Dr. So-and-so or Mrs. MaidenName at cocktail parties, I won't throw a fit about it, because that's the most annoying thing about women who keep their names.

The only weird thing about this is that essentially, for all intents and purposes, I am simply keeping my maiden name from a legal standpoint, so mortgages and bank statements will have to be in my maiden name, right? I'm making only a very tiny concession to FH and taking his name in the weakest way possible -- that is, socially but not legally. I know there are women who keep their maiden name professionally but legally assume their husband's last name for all other aspects of life, but due to the nature of my profession I don't think I can do this.

I've posed this solution to FH a few times over the last few years, and again in the last four weeks, and I think he's OK with it. He's not adamantly against it, anyway. I'm not sure if I should accept his OK-ness and not bring it up again, or if I should keep pestering him for his real feelings.

I'm going to be brave and open this topic up for your comments, but there are no guarantees that I will listen to any of them. :) So, what do you think?