In this episode, the host of the podcast Lara McElderry will be sharing some stories from her own journey as a physician spouse and how she became inspired to start a podcast.  She'll be talking about some of the struggles her and her husband faced in medical school when their four-year-old son was diagnosed with a brain tumor, her decision to give up a great teaching job to support her husband, and how she dealt with several moves when her husband decided to change career paths.

At the beginning of this episode, you'll hear a letter from the wife of a doctor who struggled with alcoholism for several years and how she supported him through the recovery of his addiction. Then, Lara will again be talking with Dr. Michael F. Myers, a clinical psychiatrist and the author of several books about medical marriages, who will be sharing advice about how to support an alcoholic spouse and how to better communicate about difficult subjects with your spouse.

Episode Notes

In this episode, Lara will be talking with Dr. Michael Myers, a clinical psychiatrist and the author of several books about medical marriages. Dr. Myers will discuss some of the issues that often plague medical marriages, including workaholism and resentment.  They'll also be discussing Lara's husband's choice to become a surgeon and have a family. He will also answer the question, "Are all surgeons jerks?"

In this episode Lara will be talking with Dr. Celeste Holbrook, a sexologist married to a physician who has dedicated her life to helping others overcome their mental blocks about intimacy.  Lara and Dr. Holbrook will have a frank conversation about the extra challenges that come with a medical career and how we can strengthen our physical connections with our partners.

Financial advice is everywhere, but not all of it is applicable to physicians and their families.  In this episode, Lara will be having a conversation with Ryan Inman, a financial planner who is married to a Pediatrician and understands the unique challenges of finances in the medical profession.  In addition to giving advice on how to find a good financial planner, Ryan will also share his thoughts on medical debt and how physicians and their spouses can best keep control of their finances.

With your spouse always putting in long hours at the hospital or constantly studying during medical school, do you ever feel like it’s hard to stay connected? In this episode Lara will be talking with Dr. Wally Goddard, who is one of the country’s leading family life educators.  He’ll be discussing how we can learn to correctly interpret ‘bids for connection,’ those words or actions that our spouses say or do to get closer to us that we may not even realize.

As anyone married to a physician knows, most medical careers are not very flexible. Whether they are in medical school or working as an attending, your spouse's medical career often sucks up a majority of their time, which can sometimes force the other aspects of their life to take a backseat.  In this episode, Lara will be talking to two different physician spouses who have mastered the art of flexibility to keep their marriages strong by using lots of creativity and a healthy sense of humor.

When Curtis Webster first decided to stay home with his kids while his wife worked as a physician, he found it difficult to find a community of stay-at-home dads who understood the extra challenges that come with being married to a doctor.  In this episode, you’ll get to hear Curtis’s own personal stories and experiences of what it’s like to be a stay-at-home dad married to a doctor, why he believes it’s important to have a support network, and how he tries to find joy in the journey everyday.

Being married to a doctor can sometimes be challenging when you feel like no one understands or recognizes the sacrifices you are making to support your spouse in their demanding career. In this episode, Lara will be talking with Christina Schuetz, a grateful mom who wrote an inspiring letter to the wife of her physician, thanking her for sacrificing time with her husband so that he could be at the hospital to operate on her daughter.

During her husband’s second year of medical school, when Lisa was six months pregnant with their third child, she was hit by a drunk driver while walking on her way to pick her daughter up from school. It’s been ten years since Lisa’s accident, and in this episode you’ll get the chance to hear Lisa tell her story of how she survived the accident and the many lessons she learned during the experience, including how she’s learned to stay positive when things get hard.