We are now in the first year of family practice residency in Wichita, Kansas. Via Christi Family Practice Residency has 16 residents in his class (there are 16 who finish in 2010, 18 will finish in 2009, and the new class has 20… then there are 2 sports medicine fellows and one new international medicine fellow). The year starts in July and ends in June.

We are now officially second years! This means only 3 or 4 call nights a month and usually only one of those is a weekend call. In the fall, Josh will probably fill up the “extra time” (our worst month of intern year was June with 7 call nights)  with moonlighting jobs. This will give him some experience flying solo and lighten our debt. Yay!

Residency is going by pretty quickly for Josh. The Internal Medicine rotation months are the worst on the family, followed by OB. The hardest part for us is getting used to a schedule and then at the end of the month, it all switches up again!

We still have almost two years left here in Wichita (as of this writing in July 2008), so there are no plans yet as to where we will end up. We had given up on Alaska when we moved here - probably because we were just so tired of moving and being in debt. But Josh is starting to talk about Alaska again. “Your family has been so supportive,” he says. Well, hopefully, Alaska will be, too - otherwise it will be tough to move back right away. As we finish up here, we’ll soon be having to pay back about $175,00. The loans are in deferment until we finish residency.