Getting My Hopes Up

Did you see that cute little counter I added a few weeks ago? It's the first thing in the column on the right. Today it says we have 254 more days left of residency. Yeah! We still have another 12 months of fellowship after that, but it is getting closer every day.

DrH decided to take a sneak peak at the jobs that were available at the moment for fun. Right now most of them are looking for people to start summer 2012 not 2013 so it really was window shopping. He read an recruiter ad that sounded too good to be true, so he had to call me to see what I would say about it.

Work 4 days/week 7 am - 5 pm.
2-3 cases/week
5 other Neurosurgeons to share call with
Protected research time
Starting salary $500K + Call $180K annually
Located in the Southwest in a community of 1M.

Besides my first thought being how can they really afford to pay you so much for working so little (not possible), but it was the last part that really got my attention. See, we are both from the Southwest and it is our ultimate dream to be there. Plus, there aren't that many cities of 1M or more in that area, so we were already guessing about where it would be. DrH called the referral number and yeah, it was too good to be true. You see, their idea of Southwest is Tulsa, Oklahoma. Really? Since when is Oklahoma considered the Southwest?

Being from the "real" Southwest I call any state that shares a border with Mexico the Southwest. Last I checked, Oklahoma wasn't near Mexico. I looked at the map and calling Oklahoma Southwest is really stretching the truth. Just because their northern border is the same latitude as the northern borders of both Arizona and New Mexico doesn't really make them a Southwest state. I consider Oklahoma more of a Central state, they could have called it South Central and been correct, but not Southwest. Really the state is almost smack in the middle of the country east to west, technically lower than the mid line north to south.... but I refuse to acknowledge Oklahoma as a Southwestern state. Furthermore, they are in the central time zone. Take that!

Warning: Read those recruiter ads with a skeptical eye:-)