Dalhousie med students learn about healthy relationships — theirs

Medical school can be stressful for students as well as their spousal equivalent. Recognizing this, Dalhousie University hosts an annual Significant Others Night, an opportunity for medical students to explore relationship issues — theirs.

“The whole message is how to create and maintain a healthy relationship at home and at work,” says Dr. Gita Sinha, student advisor in the Faculty of Medicine. For the past 20 years, a panel of residents, retired physicians, practising doctors and partners meet with doctors-to-be, residents and their significant others over an informal meal.The private, evening event, organized by a small group of medical students and residents, draws upwards of 100 people each year.

It allows participants to hear firsthand about the issues physicians and their partners have faced — everything from sharing responsibility for raising young children to surviving a long-distance relationship to delaying pregnancy — and the solutions that have proved viable for them. “There are no right answers, but there are different perspectives,” says Sinha.

“We are trying to inculcate very early in their [professional] life that not only is medicine very important but so is the health and future of the doctor.” — Donalee Moulton, Halifax