There's not a lot to this story, but it's moderately interesting. I'm from Tulsa, Ok. I'd lived my first 28 years there; went to the same school from 1st-12th grade, and went to work at my old high school after college which was also in Tulsa. Yeah: Tulsa, Tulsa, Tulsa.
Then I got the insider's look at how the sausage was made at my job/school, and was ready to leave and start anew somewhere else. My wife, a med student at the time, tried to "match" with various residencies, and so that "somewhere else" ended up being Akron, OH.
There was one year where snow was on the ground from Thanksgiving to April Fools Day. Yeah, that's a bit much on the whole snow thing.
When we were almost done there, I got my first cell phone, the venerable Nokia 5010, with a Tulsa area code because we figured we were going back home. But there were no good OB/GYN opportunities in Tulsa at the time. She got a single interview for a position that made her an employee with low pay and long hours.
Then, my amazing wife said, "Tulsa isn't looking great. What do you think about Nashville? My dad is there." And, of course, by "there" she meant 90 miles south of there. And by "Nashville," she meant "Franklin," which is only 20 miles south of Nashville, but also might as well be lightyears away.
So I said, "Sure. Nashville is fine--not knowing a single thing about it at the time. Except that I knew about a restaurant called O'Charlie's that had good rolls that they gave you for free. ROLLS for freaking free--before the meal, when you are starving. I knew about this because I'd driven through the area once with my friend on the way to Florida to embark on a crazy Bahamas "cruise" in which I slept on the beach in the Bahamas and almost starved to death. See, I'd been dating Heather, and her dad Kendall put me and my friend up for the night, and bought us O'Charlie's. It cost us a couple hours going out of the way to Nashville-ish, but free lodging is supremely appealing to a college student. And free dinner was quite the boon as well. And of course, by O'Charlie's in Nashville, I mean "Franklin."
So, I said, "sure" to Middle Tennessee. Heather told her office manager "sure" and that kind woman put it out on the listserve that there was a 4th year OB/Gyn resident looking for opportunities in Nashville. You can google "listserve." It's going to be a thing like dinosaurs. We're pretty sure what they were, but aren't so sure why they were a good idea. But they were a stepping stone to better things.
Five minutes after the listserve post, the office manager's phone rang. It was a practice called Womens Group of Franklin. Yeah, that's a grammatical error right there in the name, but really, who cares? We interviewed with lovely potential coworkers and found the city of Franklin to be fantastic. That was in late 2004, and they'd just kicked a not-so-potential partner to the curb who hadn't worked out. "How soon can you get here?" was their main concern after meeting us and finding us to be non-serial-killers. The answer was, of course, "Right after we finish residency in 2005."
So that's how a door was closed in Tulsa, and a window was opened in Tennessee. I've been here for over 15 years now, and I think maybe I would leave for Venice or Paris or London. But then again, maybe not.
