Behind The White Coat - Real Talk For Physician Spouses

#35| How A Med Spouse Turned Survival Into Support For Families In Training

• Amanda • Season 1 • Episode 35

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We talk with Rachel Thibault about turning survival into growth during medical training, from having a baby during MS3 to supporting a new neurosurgery resident while working full-time. She shares practical systems, community-building steps, and a free guide for med spouses.

• key moments from college to match and residency
• baby during MS3 and specialty choice pressure
• shift from comparison and martyr mindset to agency
• work boundaries, four tens, and nanny share structure
• nightly no-phone dinners and micro-rituals for connection
• how the free med spouse survival guide helps partners
• finding community fast after match and avoiding isolation
• early-stage nonprofit to support residents in crisis
• identity beyond roles in motherhood, marriage, and work
• seasonal thinking, resilience, and paying it forward

Grab Rachel’s free guides at Life of a MedSpouse on Instagram via the link in bio and follow for more information; 100% of proceeds from other products support the nonprofit creation. 

If you enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with others.

DM me on Instagram or email me at amanda@abtnhomes.com with your thoughts, topic ideas, questions, or even guest suggestions.

SPEAKER_03:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode. I am your host, Amanda Barron, and today is going to inspire anyone walking through medical training. I am really excited for this conversation. And it doesn't matter if you are a student, a resident, or a partner holding everything together behind the scenes. My guest today is someone who gets it on every level. She is the wife of a first-year neurosurgery resident, a full-time pediatric physical therapist, a mom to a busy toddler boy, and someone who still finds time to pour into others walking the same road. Her mission is to support the partners of doctors and doctors in training by showing that this life can be navigated well, not just endured. And she recently released her brand new med school survival guide for spouses, which is already helping so many couples thrive through the chaos of medical life. So please welcome my special guest today, Rachel Tebow. Rachel, thanks for being here today. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. Yes, I'm so excited. I know that you have so much to share and you are already pouring into so many people. So tell us just a little bit about your personal story and what inspired your mission to actually support medical spouses and show that this life can be navigated well and not just survived.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so I'll go back to the kind of the beginning of our story. So we met freshman year of college. We're both biochemistry majors, and we met in biology lab. Everybody jokes about meeting in chemistry lab, but biolab. We lab partners, and then we started dating towards the end of our freshman year. He wanted to do medicine, but it did not seem like it was going to be in the picture at that time based off of GPA and everything.

SPEAKER_01:

But then it's not easy.

SPEAKER_02:

No, but then he really picked it up and like crushed his last two and a half years of college, and then he moved back to New Hampshire. I started grad school in New Hampshire as well. I lived with his cousins, and then he took two years off studying for the MCAT, taking MCAT, was accepted to one med school, deferred for a year so he could work a little bit more, and then we got married during COVID. Oh yeah. I still had a rotation to finish, so I moved five weeks after that, and then med school started. All the moving parts. It was so fun. I still had a year left of rotations to do, and then I graduated, got my degree, and started working, and he's just in school, and it was fine for the most part while I was in rotations. It wasn't too bad. We were in it together, studying together, which was kind of fun. But then it kind of changed a little bit, and I realized, oh we're in this. This is what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And then came the question of like, oh, well, do we want to start a family? When should we start a family? And we had our son a little bit halfway through MS3, and then it just all shifted for me. It was really, really hard. He at that point was just deciding on his specialty. He didn't decide on neurosurgery until towards the end of MS3. And then we had like six months essentially to really he had six months to really crush it to try to get interviews and do all these publications.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And so everything at home pretty much felt to me at that point. And then with our son, and then knowing he was gonna be away for five plus months on editions, it was just really a very hard time. Yeah, you were carrying the weight and working full-time because I needed to financially for us, and we were far away from family. So I think that's really when it hit me. And I was doing a lot of comparing my life to other people's lives at that time. I was really falling victim to this whole victim mindset, martyr complex idea. Like, woe is me. Right. I'm working so hard. Yeah. And yeah, at that point, it was just kind of surviving. And then towards the end, going through match and everything, and him getting it was kind of like, oh, like we have done it. This is it. We've made it to the end, and then holy cow residency.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. It's like a whole new thing that you have to learn. It's like you feel like you've and and I kind of say it's similar to parenting. It's like, okay, I've got this, I I have this down, and then something new comes up. You know, they they start teething, they aren't sleeping well. And it's it's the same thing where you've got to pivot and figure it out, rely on yourself, rely on others, and yeah. So then you had to like relearn all over again. Yeah, we moved.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep. But when we got here, I got a new job, I made some friends right away, and I was like, oh, okay, actually, like when I do have the right support systems in place and I have a better mindset about it, this isn't so bad.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Not necessarily easy, but maybe bearable, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, right. Yeah. If I just changed my mindset about this, stop saying that I'm the victim of life circumstances, then I can get a little bit more of a grip and I can deal with this. And when that mind shift happened, I was like, oh well, I would really like to share this with people because I think it's really, really easy to fall into that comparison trap and that marker complex as a med spouse. So I was like, well, if I can share anything with the world, even if it's just me going through it and with a positive mindset spin, then I will.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I agree. And everybody's got their story to share. And a lot of it has similarities, yet differences. And I feel like everyone can relate. They've got something they can learn from your story, take with them, and then maybe share with somebody else as well when they are starting to go through it. So I do think your voice needs to be heard and sharing with others. And so thank you for that. And um, so let's go to so you are a pediatric physical therapist, a mom, and and how old is uh your little boy? You will be two in January. Two. So you are in the throes of it. And then obviously your husband in neurosurgery. So, what has balance looked like for you this first year? And is there really ever a balance?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I definitely don't necessarily think it's a balance very much at all. I'm going into this thinking that like we both just have our own individual jobs and it's not gonna look even, and that's totally okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But I think the biggest thing that helped me find a little bit more balance coming into residency was getting a new job. I did not have a good work-life balance in my job in Virginia, and I think that really impacted a lot of things. So coming here when I was applying to jobs, I had a very strict kind of idea what of what I was looking for in a job. So I found one. The owner is incredibly flexible with what I need to do when I need to leave. The hours are the hours, it's not like my husband where he might be done at six. Like I am out the door at six here. Right. And that's just how it is, which has been really nice. We also have a nanny share here. I know not everyone can afford that, but for what the hours were, it was gonna be almost the exact same cost as daycare. So that has been awesome because she feeds him breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the four days that I work, I do four tens. And so that has really helped me quite a bit on those days. And then on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I can fully parent. I have a lot more energy for those three days, so I can really give him my all those three days. And then whenever Drew is home, he just jumps right into our routine and the fun that we're having.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. And it allows you to be completely present, intentional with your time. And so I think that's great. And back to what you're saying with work, you know, setting appropriate boundaries, asking for help. So whether that is from a nanny or your community that you said that you have found. And do you have any tips on just staying connected with your spouse or your partner in times like this where either maybe you guys are exhausted or your time is limited? Do you have anything that you would want to share with listeners on doing the best you can to have those connections?

SPEAKER_02:

So I'll be completely honest, we are still figuring this out. Yeah. We're only like what, four or five months into residency now. So we're definitely still figuring this out. And it's gonna change, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

From month to month for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Yeah. And the way his schedule is set up right now, it's like a two-week stint, and we can both tell when we're nearing the end of that because our time together is a little bit more limited and conversations are not as deep. But we'll text him we can throughout the day. Sometimes it's zero text throughout the day. Otherwise, when we do sit down and eat together, so our son goes to bed and then we eat together as a couple because he's already had dinner, we've had our fun together, it's not just eating. He'll go to bed and then we'll eat together. No phones.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Sometimes it's very quiet, which is okay. Yeah. Sometimes he has a research deadline, so I cook and then he'll eat while he's doing research, and that's just how it is, and I have to be okay with that. But yeah, we'll try to eat together every night if we can and talk.

SPEAKER_03:

And I love that. Again, talking back to your time and being intentional and then having those expectations set up front so that you guys know what those evenings look like, or you already know what that night might look like because he does have those deadlines you're talking about. So I think even those open communications of the expectations, and even if it's just sitting quiet because you've both had a really busy day is great too. Whatever fills your cup.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. We also, since the beginning, I will wake up at when he wakes up to head off to work. And even though he's up and then out the door within five minutes, which I don't know, I don't know how he does it. But I will get up and I'll give my kiss goodbye and then send him off for the day. And we don't really ever talk beside just have good day, love you bye. I think that has been really special time.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think that's great. I remember when my husband was on his cardiothoracic rotation and we were like two ships passing in the night. Our schedules were not aligned. He was coming home at like 3 45. I was leaving by 6 30. And so even those five minutes, I think, speak volumes when your time is limited.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's definitely more quality time rather than quantity.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. Yep. I totally agree. So I want to congratulate you first on launching your med school survival guide for spouses. And I just want to not only give you a plug, but I want to have you tell everybody about it, what inspired you to write it, you know, your purpose behind it, especially for those that don't know anything about it. I would love for you to kind of dive a little bit into what that guide is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So I started writing it a while ago because like almost every year of med school, I'd search for blogs or things on social media, mostly blogs though, or just any kind of guide that would tell me, like, okay, what's gonna happen this year? Yeah, ways I can support my spouse during this particular season, or even just like explaining the process in general because he would tell me, but he also didn't fully know because we've never gone through it before. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And your perspectives are different, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So like what he's doing, how can I fit into that equation? I don't how can I support you because like I'm not gonna write your personal statement for applications or whatever, but can I do other things? Yeah, and I think too, just people in the metal field in general are not very good at asking for help. Never, very independent, like want to do it themselves, all figured out, right? Yeah. So he wasn't gonna tell me if he needed help or exactly how he needed help. I think sometimes too, they don't know what you can do to help them. So I wrote this guide just for that reason. Like it was something that I really wish that I had had going through all of med school, and it encapsulates everything from the initial med school application process when they're taking the MCATS, the budgeting that's required for applications, and then from MS1, two, three, four, audition rotations, residency applications, and then match, and lots of different things in between. But I have gotten contact with people through my Instagram account, and they wrote blurbs for each year. Like you even wrote a little section, which is awesome, about your experience solo parenting during that year when your husband was away for fellowship. So there's different partner perspectives all throughout it, and then just little things. Each chapter has ways that you can support your spouse, but also ways that you can support yourself, which I think gets lost. Right. Yeah, that's very easily. It's very easy to like fall back into that support role and then realize, oh, I haven't actually been supporting myself.

SPEAKER_00:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I cannot wait. We will obviously have all of that info in here for people to get the guide, but I think it's huge and chat full of such great information. And then my question to you is what is your next guide coming out?

SPEAKER_02:

Good question. I wrote a follow-up guide on like having children in medical school, but also taught has a little part about during residency too. And then also if you're like the med student or the resident having kids.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But I don't know about a residence. The residency guide, the fellowship guide, the attending guide. I see Siri is coming here. Yeah, I cannot constantly write a residency guide yet. I think you're gonna have a lot to share in in that time. So, but I I can't wait, can't wait to see what you come up with. And um, for those of you listening at the end of this episode, we will ask, you know, obviously where you can find the guide, how you can connect with Rachel and have those links in here as well. So I do want to move on to like connections and community. And many of us feel super isolated in this journey. And so, how do you encourage spouses to find connection and community during training? How do you find your people and advice for those that are still searching?

SPEAKER_02:

So I did not do a good job of finding community while in med school. We, in my mind, were only gonna be there for four years. It ended up being five because you did a research year. But I was like, we're not gonna be here for very long. I don't really ever want to move back to this area. So, like, why why is that? Right. It's it's a lot of effort, a lot of time. So I didn't, and that was a mistake. So coming into residency, I really worked hard like the day after match day to start building community. So for you, I joined our local side-by-side chapter on Facebook, and then I just posted in there. I said, Hi, this is who I am, this is why we're coming here. I have a son, just wanted to put it out there if anyone wanted to be friends.

SPEAKER_03:

And I actually had I'm sure you had a ton of people respond.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. And one of the girls who responded, we get together frequently and we actually started going to church together, um, which is really nice because our husbands are often not there. So it's been really great knowing her and then the whole side-by-side group. And then I also got to know a few other med spouses outside of side-by-side, and then just my co-workers, they've become good friends, which has been really nice. But it takes a lot of effort at first to build that community.

SPEAKER_03:

It does, and getting out of your comfort zone and putting yourself out there. It's very vulnerable being in a new, new place and not knowing anyone, and then being tired and still trying to say yes and make those connections. And then what I found was I I felt like it was kind of like double dating, where I was trying to find my friends, but then if we could find couple friends, great. And then also friends that had kids and our kids got along, you know, and so it was like all of these moving factors where it was like, man, this is hard.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of upfront effort, but if you put it in the work, you'll reap the benefits in the long run. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And it makes all the difference having friends. It it really does. It really does in in the highs and the lows. And and having your people to share all the highs, but also be there for you in the lows. And so back to when you were saying, you know, if you could go back and do it differently. So whether that was in med school or even for the people that are in a one-year fellowship somewhere, would you still give advice as far as no matter how long your time is or where you are, that dig in?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, even if you're only gonna be there for a few months, just a year fellowship, I definitely would try to find some sort of community if that's church or a workout group or a side-by-side or some other a lot. Cities have their own, like residency or fellowship, yeah, med spouse community group. Find those. You can find them all over social media. So I have a little communities tab in my highlights on Instagram. There are a couple of those highlighted, but and if anybody needs to help finding one, I can always put it out on my platform, be like, hey, anybody in this city? And then people will respond. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I love that because I don't think everyone knows that they are available, first of all. And then, you know, we did not have one here in our community. Um, now we do for residents, but we didn't for those that are at the end of their training or attendings, and you still need that community, even outside of it. So if you guys look for one and you don't have one, obviously Rachel and I are happy to help you find one, but you know, maybe start one. And it's it's hard to do that. But when just kind of like when you stepped out of your comfort zone and you had posted on your side by side, I think everybody's looking for that community. It's just needing somebody to kind of take the first step and then to make others feel like, okay, I can do this too. And so I think there's so many people out there feeling the same. It's just making that first move.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Absolutely. And even like within the community, there's going to be times that you can't give. Back to your community. Like after you have a kid, like there's no way. But having that established community, they can step in and help you, and then eventually you'll be able to give back as well. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And I don't think people are doing it and expecting something in return. Right. Uh a lot of times paying it forward because it was done for them.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. And kind of along that idea of paying it forward, I'm actually partnering with another med spouse who I met through my Instagram account, which has been awesome. We are in the very beginning phase of creating a nonprofit that would financially support residents and residents' families going through financial emergencies. I don't think that that would be possible if we weren't in our own med spouse communities. We've reached out, we found our own communities, we realized there was a problem, and now we're trying to solve that problem. But and that's going to be more of a national thing. We're hoping all over the place.

SPEAKER_03:

So kudos to you guys for coming up with the idea, thinking of it. I think it's a fabulous idea. I think there is a need for it. And I feel like you are going to be blown away by the support that you see nationally, whether it's from residents themselves, those that are done with training, um, through some of the actual hospitals and institutions. So I love that idea. I don't know how I can help, but I am happy to help in any way that I can.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we appreciate that. We're still figuring it all out. So yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. In all of your spare time that we have being so busy, let's just throw in the nonprofit as well. Why not? I love it. Um, so you talk about finding growth and strength through the medical life. And what does that look like for you personally? I know you touch space a little bit on mindset shifts, but maybe even like lessons learned in motherhood or marriage career. I just I would love to know what that kind of looks like for you personally.

SPEAKER_02:

I think a lot of it is just finding my identity again. And you hear people ask the question like, if you can't name motherhood or your job or whatever at the end of it, who are you? You can't use these other words to describe yourself. Who are you? The beginning of motherhood, I lost it. Being a med spouse, I lost it. Outside of my job, you kind of lose it a little bit. So really figuring out who I am and what I can bring to the table has really helped me grow. It's made me stronger to be able to show up better for everything in my life. And that was a lot of work. And I'm still working, and I should be in therapy probably, but I have a lot of time for that. So yeah, I think it's just really hard. If you can't get out of that support role mindset, then you're just gonna be stuck for a long time.

SPEAKER_03:

So I do think it's great advice. And speaking for me personally, finding that identity was hard. You know, I I lost it along the way where I was Chris's wife and helping along that support role, like you were saying, or my kids' mom. And at one point, you know, I had to kind of stop. Like I wanted to be able to use my education and go back to work. And not to say that being home wasn't amazing. I loved being home with my kids. And it just was kind of like we said, those seasons of life where I was ready. I was ready to give back somehow, to find my purpose, to bring joy to myself, take care of myself, you know, all those things that you have mentioned in this podcast. And the thing that I loved about it is you can be any age and kind of reinvent that story and rewrite that story to figure out what you want to do now. So even if you're 25, 35, 45, I'm almost 50. And so, you know, all of those things I think speak volumes to bringing that joy back and then being able to pay it forward, like what you were talking about.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And then also just realizing and understanding that everything has its season.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So it will end and things will change again. But and you'll come out the other side, it'll be okay. But so it's hard.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, yes. It's hard in the in the midst to kind of to see it, but you're right. It you will get through it and and having that support system and making those little moments count, I think will um will just help you along that journey. Okay, so for the listeners, if they want to get your guide, they want to connect, maybe uh they want to join your side by side or have questions about this nonprofit you're gonna start. Best way for them to find you and connect.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, Instagram. My handle is Life of a MedSpouse. And you can find me there. The link in my bio is where you can get the guide. So it'll just bring you to my fourth wall shop. Actually, I have other products on there. 100% of the proceeds of those things that you buy will go towards the creation of this nonprofit.

SPEAKER_03:

Love that.

SPEAKER_02:

Otherwise, the guide, the med school survival guide, and the having children and medical training guide, they're both free. I didn't want to gatekeep any of that information. So the guides are both free. Download as many copies as you want to, send them to whatever friends. You don't need to send them to the link to get it, just send the PDF to them. But yeah, the link in my bio, but Life of a Med Spouse on Instagram, DM me. Any questions? If you just want to chat, just say hi, go for it. I love hearing from you guys.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that and so kind of you. So thank you so, so much for that. And my last two questions for every guest. The first one is what advice would you offer your younger self?

SPEAKER_02:

Comparison is gonna get you nowhere, it's just gonna make you more miserable. So just focus on your own life and what you're doing, and it'll all be okay.

SPEAKER_03:

I agree, and it's hard, hard not to do that. I am guilty of it. And I think social media plays into that or what you see. People always post all the great things, not the not so great things. And so I think that you kind of get into that trap and go down the rabbit hole of comparison. So I think that's fabulous advice. Absolutely. Okay, second one. If your life were a reality TV show, what would the title be?

SPEAKER_02:

So I've been thinking about this for a long time. And I hated, I actually asked Chat GPT, I was like, can you answer the question? Yeah, yeah. And I hated everything that it said. But I was driving home from the nanny pickup one day and it hit me because I was planning what we were gonna have for dinner, and I said, Oh, well, we're having leftovers. And I was like, Well, that's what I'm gonna name it because we eat a lot of leftovers, but also I feel like I get whatever leftover in my husband's tank. So it's what kind of goodness can you make from whatever leftovers that you have? So it's gonna be called leftovers.

SPEAKER_03:

I think it's a great title, and I can completely relate to that. We still, even you know, this stage of the medical life eat a lot of leftovers, and sometimes I'm getting what's left over, you know, for him. But on the flip side, he's getting what's left over for me at the end of the week or at that day. And so I think it could go either way.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, Rachel, thank you so much for sharing your heart and your journey with us today. I love how you remind all of us that the medical life can be a season of growth, connection, and purpose and not just survival. So, listeners, please go grab a copy of her med school survival guide. It is an incredible resource that belongs in every white coat household. And if today's episode encouraged you, I would love for you to share it with another med spouse who could use a little bit of hope. And if you haven't already subscribed, please do so and send us any comments, questions, or if you've got a suggestion for another guest, um, please send our way. And you're not just surviving this life behind the white coat, but keep in mind you are thriving in it. Until next time, that's a wrap on this episode of Behind the White Coat. I hope today's conversation left you feeling more understood and supported. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with another physician spouse. Your support helps more of us to connect. Keep in mind this podcast is for you. So let's keep this conversation going. DM me on Instagram at Amanda Barron Realtor with your thoughts, topic ideas, questions, or even guest suggestions. I would really love to hear from you. Thanks for spending part of your day with me, and remember, you are never in this alone. See you next time.