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My wife is looking at residency programs (she will be an MD). She has an interview at UCSF, but we are not sure we will go--San Francisco is just too expensive.

by jostmey 10y ago

My wife is looking at residency programs (she will be an MD). She has an interview at UCSF, but we are not sure we will go--San Francisco is just too expensive. Salary is only $65000 and we have to pay back student loans. I cant't imagine any doctor wanting to train in San Francisco. The city is pricing itself out of existence.

benmaraschino 10y ago
Does that salary include the housing stipend? AFAIK, UCSF residents get a decent stipend to use for housing expenses, on top of their normal salary. May not be enough to swing the balance either way, but it's worth knowing about...
- jostmey 10y ago
  I think 65000 is with the housing stipend, but it is possible the website doesn't tell us everything. https://medicine.ucsf.edu/education/residency/application/comp.html https://medicine.ucsf.edu/education/residency/application/co...
  - boulos 10y ago
    Does she need to be at UCSF Parnassus or Mission Bay? Either way, there are still housing options at the edges that actually let you get to UCSF quickly and cheaply (like Sunset/Richmond for Parnassus, or Lower Dogpatch for Mission Bay). For a reasonable place in a good location, you'll end up at about $3000/month (there's a 1 bdrm at 246 2nd St). That's definitely expensive compared to nationwide averages, but you won't need a car if you both work in the city. As another poster mentioned, UCSF at Mission Bay (and elsewhere actually) has lots of purpose built housing at below market rates. Contact them!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
placeybordeaux 10y ago
We were in a similar situation and didn't even look at SF. We are currently in SEA which is fairly expensive, but there is a ton of high density housing being created and effort to develop far reaching & high throughput rail.
pj_mukh 10y ago
Don't believe the media hype, I have a couple of friends doing their residency out of UCSF and loving it. Look at places in East bay (or slightly south of it) online. It is all on the BART so it is convenient to get SF. Yes, you can't live in SoMa or have a three bedroom house with that salary but SF city is not the center of the universe.
- meritt 10y ago
  Hype? It's an hour+ commute between East Bay and UCSF. All my friends doing a residency put in close to 80 hours a week at other facilities. I'm not sure how that's remotely sustainable to waste that much time commuting.
  - DrScump 10y ago
    If it's purely wasted time, sure. If she has reading, research, or other "portable" work to do each day, however, commuting with somebody else doing the "driving" isn't wasted time at all. That's part of why I take Caltrain to SF whenever suitable.
    - Retric 10y ago
      11 hours commuting a week + 80 hours working = 13 hour days 7 days a week.
  - chaostheory 10y ago
    The area south of SF (Daly City, South SF, San Bruno, and Pacifica) is still semi-reasonable in cost and there's no bridge to cross. The crime rates are also much better than East Bay (excluding Fremont). As a semi-general rule for crime in the SF Peninsula (with some exceptions), try to be west of 101 and El Camino Real. Ideally try to be west of 280 as well.
east2west 10y ago
When I was a postdoc at UCSF there was subsided housing at the Mission Bay. The price was like $1000 below market rate. I think they still have it, but space is no doubt very limited.
sndean 10y ago
My fiancee is currently going through the same process. She's going to, but not taking seriously, the interviews she has in Manhattan. OTOH, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and a few other cities look promising. Some of the programs in Manhattan and Brooklyn are paying ~55000. She's in (we're in) >400000 in debt from the med school loans. There's no chance we can go there. (Maybe if they paid ~100000.)
- muninn_ 10y ago
  Stay away from Atlanta if you value quality of living. Look to places like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Columbus, etc.... big healthcare areas without being the biggest sprawl on the planet or having insane cost of living.
  - libria 10y ago
    > Stay away from Atlanta if you value quality of living Can you elaborate on Atlanta's poor QoL?
    - muninn_ 10y ago
      Sure do you have something specific you'd like me to touch on or just in general?
      - libria 10y ago
        I've lived in Atlanta and don't much care for it, but I'd think the other cities you mentioned would have similar drawbacks. What makes Pittsburgh/Columbus much better? edit: pros-> good Cost of Living to salary ratio, 4 seasons. cons-> humidity, traffic, public education system, lack of attractions (you can only go to the aquarium so many times).
    - gtaylor 10y ago
      Dirty, terrible traffic, was decimated by the recession and not quite back. There are very nice areas like Buckhead, and really rough areas like Lithia Springs. You'll need a car to get anywhere and you're going to spend a lot of time in it. Especially if you live in one of the popular suburbs like Marietta or even Douglasville. Source: lived in the area a few times.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
stevehawk 10y ago
Same. Fiancee interviewed at Stanford last year for a surgery fellowship. But it was never high on the list because of the cost. Oddly enough, ended up in Little Rock which is starting to develop a tech market and is crazy cheap to live in (I came from DC).
- FajitaNachos 10y ago
  I'm from Little Rock, though I haven't lived there in a few years. It is crazy cheap, but I'm not sure I would call it a "tech market". The Northwest part of the state is vastly superior to LR in my opinion. You should get up there sometime if you haven't.
  - mountaineer22 10y ago
    Bentonville is nice, but pretty crazy real estate bubble. Lots of spec homes being built.
jdavis703 10y ago
I assume you also make at least $65,000? If so you'll be fine in the Bay Area with your combined incomes. When I first moved out here four years ago I was making only $95,000/year and still had plenty left over to go on vacation, get drinks, eat dinner out, etc.
muzz 10y ago
Residency is a temporary proposition for a few years, and has always paid peanuts. When she finishes residency she'll be paid market value which is significantly higher.
curun1r 10y ago
Depending on what type of medicine you're wife is interested in, she may want to avoid SF for completely different reasons. I had a roommate who was an ER nurse. She worked shifts at an SF hospital and also commuted over to Oakland (Highland) to work shifts for lower pay. I asked her why she'd drive all that way when she could just pick up more shifts for higher pay in SF. She said the experience she got in Oakland was so much more valuable. In SF, it was lots of concerned parents bringing in their children because they'd had a fever of almost 100F for over an hour! At Highland, it was gunshot victims, illegal immigrants with obscure tropical diseases and just a much larger variety of medical needs. She claimed that on a per hour basis, the experience in Oakland was 10 times more valuable than in SF. So not only is the city pricing itself out of existence, as you mentioned, but it's pricing itself into a monoculture that takes away a lot of the diversity of the people there. And doctors might want a bit more of that diversity during their training. Then again, if she's studying for a specialty in treating carpal tunnel syndrome or interested in doing Lasik surgery, there's probably no better place on earth to be :-)
geebee 10y ago
Are you a software developer? Or some other kind of professional in the bay area? Salaries are pretty high here. If you're a developer, it wouldn't take much for you and your wife to clear 200k. I'm only barely above that with a two income family, and I'm raising two kids in San Francisco. Yeah, I got into the real estate market a bit earlier, during the previous boom, but housing is still expensive as all holy hell, I'd say I get to pay 75% of what I'd have to pay now. So it's better, but not that great for me. Look south of 280. Pacific and Daly City are fine, or some parts of SF. Rent is kind of outrageous, a 2br house near me is going for $4200, though it's really nice, 1920s style, and it's a house, with an extensive downstairs bonus room, separate living and dining room, and so forth. If you were more interested in saving money and it's just you and your wife, by guess is that you could knock a grand off that and still be walking distance from two bart stations, the J, K, and M lines, and the 43 that goes right by UCSF parnassus. It's not hard to access the rest of SF from that corner, there's all kinds of public transportation options near SF City college, Portola, Excelsior, Mission Terrace, etc. That's a ton to be spending on rent in such an unfashionable corner, but jeez, we're talking about the opportunity to do a residency at UCSF. Again, not sure about your salary, and the loans for med school can be pretty heavy, But even if you only earn half the median salary of a developer, you can make this work.

by jostmey 10y ago

benmaraschino 10y ago

Does that salary include the housing stipend? AFAIK, UCSF residents get a decent stipend to use for housing expenses, on top of their normal salary. May not be enough to swing the balance either way, but it's worth knowing about...

jostmey 10y ago
I think 65000 is with the housing stipend, but it is possible the website doesn't tell us everything. https://medicine.ucsf.edu/education/residency/application/comp.html https://medicine.ucsf.edu/education/residency/application/co...
- boulos 10y ago
  Does she need to be at UCSF Parnassus or Mission Bay? Either way, there are still housing options at the edges that actually let you get to UCSF quickly and cheaply (like Sunset/Richmond for Parnassus, or Lower Dogpatch for Mission Bay). For a reasonable place in a good location, you'll end up at about $3000/month (there's a 1 bdrm at 246 2nd St). That's definitely expensive compared to nationwide averages, but you won't need a car if you both work in the city. As another poster mentioned, UCSF at Mission Bay (and elsewhere actually) has lots of purpose built housing at below market rates. Contact them!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

placeybordeaux 10y ago

We were in a similar situation and didn't even look at SF. We are currently in SEA which is fairly expensive, but there is a ton of high density housing being created and effort to develop far reaching & high throughput rail.

pj_mukh 10y ago

Don't believe the media hype, I have a couple of friends doing their residency out of UCSF and loving it. Look at places in East bay (or slightly south of it) online. It is all on the BART so it is convenient to get SF. Yes, you can't live in SoMa or have a three bedroom house with that salary but SF city is not the center of the universe.

meritt 10y ago
Hype? It's an hour+ commute between East Bay and UCSF. All my friends doing a residency put in close to 80 hours a week at other facilities. I'm not sure how that's remotely sustainable to waste that much time commuting.
- DrScump 10y ago
  If it's purely wasted time, sure. If she has reading, research, or other "portable" work to do each day, however, commuting with somebody else doing the "driving" isn't wasted time at all. That's part of why I take Caltrain to SF whenever suitable.
  - Retric 10y ago
    11 hours commuting a week + 80 hours working = 13 hour days 7 days a week.
- chaostheory 10y ago
  The area south of SF (Daly City, South SF, San Bruno, and Pacifica) is still semi-reasonable in cost and there's no bridge to cross. The crime rates are also much better than East Bay (excluding Fremont). As a semi-general rule for crime in the SF Peninsula (with some exceptions), try to be west of 101 and El Camino Real. Ideally try to be west of 280 as well.

east2west 10y ago

When I was a postdoc at UCSF there was subsided housing at the Mission Bay. The price was like $1000 below market rate. I think they still have it, but space is no doubt very limited.

sndean 10y ago

My fiancee is currently going through the same process. She's going to, but not taking seriously, the interviews she has in Manhattan. OTOH, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and a few other cities look promising. Some of the programs in Manhattan and Brooklyn are paying ~55000. She's in (we're in) >400000 in debt from the med school loans. There's no chance we can go there. (Maybe if they paid ~100000.)

muninn_ 10y ago
Stay away from Atlanta if you value quality of living. Look to places like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Columbus, etc.... big healthcare areas without being the biggest sprawl on the planet or having insane cost of living.
- libria 10y ago
  > Stay away from Atlanta if you value quality of living Can you elaborate on Atlanta's poor QoL?
  - muninn_ 10y ago
    Sure do you have something specific you'd like me to touch on or just in general?
    - libria 10y ago
      I've lived in Atlanta and don't much care for it, but I'd think the other cities you mentioned would have similar drawbacks. What makes Pittsburgh/Columbus much better? edit: pros-> good Cost of Living to salary ratio, 4 seasons. cons-> humidity, traffic, public education system, lack of attractions (you can only go to the aquarium so many times).
  - gtaylor 10y ago
    Dirty, terrible traffic, was decimated by the recession and not quite back. There are very nice areas like Buckhead, and really rough areas like Lithia Springs. You'll need a car to get anywhere and you're going to spend a lot of time in it. Especially if you live in one of the popular suburbs like Marietta or even Douglasville. Source: lived in the area a few times.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

stevehawk 10y ago

Same. Fiancee interviewed at Stanford last year for a surgery fellowship. But it was never high on the list because of the cost. Oddly enough, ended up in Little Rock which is starting to develop a tech market and is crazy cheap to live in (I came from DC).

FajitaNachos 10y ago
I'm from Little Rock, though I haven't lived there in a few years. It is crazy cheap, but I'm not sure I would call it a "tech market". The Northwest part of the state is vastly superior to LR in my opinion. You should get up there sometime if you haven't.
- mountaineer22 10y ago
  Bentonville is nice, but pretty crazy real estate bubble. Lots of spec homes being built.

jdavis703 10y ago

I assume you also make at least $65,000? If so you'll be fine in the Bay Area with your combined incomes. When I first moved out here four years ago I was making only $95,000/year and still had plenty left over to go on vacation, get drinks, eat dinner out, etc.

muzz 10y ago

Residency is a temporary proposition for a few years, and has always paid peanuts. When she finishes residency she'll be paid market value which is significantly higher.

curun1r 10y ago

Depending on what type of medicine you're wife is interested in, she may want to avoid SF for completely different reasons. I had a roommate who was an ER nurse. She worked shifts at an SF hospital and also commuted over to Oakland (Highland) to work shifts for lower pay. I asked her why she'd drive all that way when she could just pick up more shifts for higher pay in SF. She said the experience she got in Oakland was so much more valuable. In SF, it was lots of concerned parents bringing in their children because they'd had a fever of almost 100F for over an hour! At Highland, it was gunshot victims, illegal immigrants with obscure tropical diseases and just a much larger variety of medical needs. She claimed that on a per hour basis, the experience in Oakland was 10 times more valuable than in SF. So not only is the city pricing itself out of existence, as you mentioned, but it's pricing itself into a monoculture that takes away a lot of the diversity of the people there. And doctors might want a bit more of that diversity during their training. Then again, if she's studying for a specialty in treating carpal tunnel syndrome or interested in doing Lasik surgery, there's probably no better place on earth to be :-)

geebee 10y ago

Are you a software developer? Or some other kind of professional in the bay area? Salaries are pretty high here. If you're a developer, it wouldn't take much for you and your wife to clear 200k. I'm only barely above that with a two income family, and I'm raising two kids in San Francisco. Yeah, I got into the real estate market a bit earlier, during the previous boom, but housing is still expensive as all holy hell, I'd say I get to pay 75% of what I'd have to pay now. So it's better, but not that great for me. Look south of 280. Pacific and Daly City are fine, or some parts of SF. Rent is kind of outrageous, a 2br house near me is going for $4200, though it's really nice, 1920s style, and it's a house, with an extensive downstairs bonus room, separate living and dining room, and so forth. If you were more interested in saving money and it's just you and your wife, by guess is that you could knock a grand off that and still be walking distance from two bart stations, the J, K, and M lines, and the 43 that goes right by UCSF parnassus. It's not hard to access the rest of SF from that corner, there's all kinds of public transportation options near SF City college, Portola, Excelsior, Mission Terrace, etc. That's a ton to be spending on rent in such an unfashionable corner, but jeez, we're talking about the opportunity to do a residency at UCSF. Again, not sure about your salary, and the loans for med school can be pretty heavy, But even if you only earn half the median salary of a developer, you can make this work.