Cost of living during Clinicals ?

[Mrak]

Hi ,
Hope everyone is doing great.

I was wondering what is the cost of living during the clinical rotations ?
Where do you stay , are the rooms provided by the hospital itself or do you have to find a room for yourself? What other costs do you have to incur ?I asked because I needed to make an estimate for the clinical years.

I am sure all of you are busy with important matters, thus thank you in advance for your precious time.
Your feedback is much appreciated.
Cheers!

[golfman]

I'll do the best I can to give you my experience. Now, expenses for clinicals vary greatly from one person to the next. I am married, so my expenses are higher than a single person. It is totally dependent on where you do you rotations. Saba has some hospitals that will provide housing for free. Other hospitals provide housing for a small fee. In other cities, you have to find housing on your own. I have moved around quite a bit for my cores, so I have also accrued travel cost. Most of the students that I know have found housing via craigslist or from talking to other students who were previously at that place. So, I'm not sure I can tell you that it will cost you $X for clinicals. I think it would be safe to say that you can make it on the loans that saba currently provides. Now, it is VERY TIGHT, and most single students share rooms in rotations. Here is my honest suggestion, don't worry about clinicals right now. You have a LONG road ahead of you. I have found that all the planning that I did before I started med school can be thrown out the window. Since I started, the U.S. economy tanked, Saba lost all of it's decent loan companies, and I'm not rotating in the city that i had "planned" to be at before I started Saba. I'm not saying this to discourage you, but to just say that you can't plan life 3-4 years down the road. Especially not medical school. If I had to give you a figure for total cost for tuition and living expenses for the 2 years of clinicals I would say to aim for $95,000. Tuition for Clinicals is almost $30K per year. That leaves you with roughly $17,500 per year for living and exams. Remember that taking the Step 1, and both Step 2 exams will be around $2,000 total. Also, applying for residency will hit around $2,000. Then you have to factor in the cost of travel to interview at residency programs.
In short, there is no way to know. Sorry to say this, but its true. I believe that the overall cost of 4 years of Medical school will probably run you between $160-200K. That's just my experience.

[Mrak]

Hey golfman,

Thanks for your response I really appreciate it.
Hopefully if I have more queries in future you wouldnt mind.

Cheers

[golfman]

I don't mind at all. I don't check this near as much as I did while on the island but I try to view it once a week or so. Feel free to ask any questions you come up with. I know I relied on others when I was in your place.