How Our Relationship Survived Surgical Residency | 10 Years Together

What does it take for a relationship to survive surgical residency, career changes, financial risk, and ten years of becoming very different people?On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, is joined by her husband Colin to celebrate ten years together and look back at what actually made their relationship work.They met just months before Frances Mei matched into a five-year surgical residency, meaning much of the early relationship unfolded under what they jokingly call “wartime conditions”: sleep deprivation, brutal hours, emotional reactivity, uncertainty about medicine, and very little bandwidth for anything outside the hospital.They talk about attraction, choosing a partner you genuinely enjoy, learning to let each other fail, and why loving someone does not mean trying to control or fix them. Colin shares what it was like supporting Frances Mei through residency when he could sometimes see a bad decision coming, but knew she needed to arrive at the lesson herself.They also revisit one of the rules that helped protect their relationship during residency: a “work talk moratorium.” Frances Mei could unload about the hospital during the drive home, but once she walked through the door, work did not get to consume the rest of their night.And they finally address a recurring assumption Frances Mei hears online: that she was only able to leave surgical practice because she had a “rich husband.” They talk candidly about their actual finances, the tradeoffs they made, living with limited savings during residency, choosing rural medicine intentionally, and taking real financial risk when Frances Mei ultimately changed careers.In this episode:• Why attraction matters in a long-term relationship• Dating and marriage during surgical residency• Supporting a partner without trying to control them• Sleep deprivation, emotional regulation, and residency• The “work talk moratorium” that protected their relationship• Knowing when medicine is taking over your entire life• Why difficult seasons can reveal compatibility• The truth about Frances Mei leaving surgery and the “rich husband” assumption• Financial tradeoffs behind a major career change• Why you want a partner who works in both peacetime and “wartime”A candid conversation about love, partnership, medicine, money, and what ten years together can teach you about building a life with another person.Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MDPresented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollowing Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.