This post is really an addendum to my earlier one today. I realized after posting that this issue arose again when applying to residencies. Basically, the things to consider are the same as when debating whether to be out when applying to medical school. What does differ is that residency programs are generally smaller in size and you will be spending a lot of time with your co-residents and faculty. So a potential conflict with one interviewer takes on much greater magnitude if that person will essentially be your boss or a key part of your social network for the next 3-8 years.

An interest in GLBT health issues or patient populations may be well-received at some programs in fields like family medicine, internal medicine, and psychiatry. It may not be as well-received in other specialties, and in some fields, like my own, pathology, it may not even be that relevant. That said, I personally was out on my residency application since one of my med school activities to list on ERAS was the GLBT group at my school. I also figured that since I would be interviewing with most of the attendings at each program and some residents that I would be working with, I would rather just put it out there, so to speak, and see what response I got. If it was poor I did not want to sign on for four years at that program. Overall, it was a non-issue and not discussed at most places, and where there was a questionable response I was glad I had that information when making my rank list.

In honor of Pride Weekend, I figured I would write something about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) issues in medical school. This is a hard topic to address because it is very broad and because one would hope that it would not really need addressing in the 21st century. But I know when I was a premed I was concerned about how being a lesbian would affect my medical school experience and I could not find much information out there. If you head over to Student Doctor Network, a lot of the threads asking for advice on being GLBT and applying tend to deteriorate into troll-fests and debates about other issues. So with that in mind, here are a few thoughts that hopefully will be helpful to someone out there.

Is medical school GLBT-friendly?

It really depends on the school. And within that it really depends on the class itself. Likely at every school there will be some people who are GLBT-friendly and some people who are not. You can try to get a gauge on it by seeing if the school has an active GLBT student group and if they include GLBT health in the curriculum in some form. AMSA has a GLBT listserv, housing list for interviews, and some other information you can use to try to get in touch with students at the school to get some idea.

Should I be out on my medical school application?

This depends a lot on your personal experiences and your comfort level. Usually it gets boiled down to two arguments: 1. med school admissions are random and competitive as is and you should never risk putting something that could be controversial on your application 2. you should be out because if they are not okay with it, you do not want to be at that school anyway. In reality, it is not that simple. The person who reads your application/interviews you may or may not be representative of the school as a whole.

If you are unsure of what to do, I would ask yourself a few questions: did being GLBT play a big role in your desire to become a physician? If it did, then maybe you want to include it in your personal statement. If it did not, then focus on the experiences that did motivate you to become a physician. Did being GLBT affect your academic performance in some way that you think may impact your application? If so, maybe you want to talk about it on your secondary where it allows you to explain extenuating circumstances. Were your activities/leadership roles in GLBT organizations or healthcare settings? Then you likely will want to list them on your application and talk about them at interviews. If you are worried about these experiences hurting you, maybe you want to slightly modify your descriptions of them ie, "I worked with a youth group and mentored high school students" rather than "I worked with a GLBT youth group and mentored GLBT high school students."

The bottom line is if you are going to be out just make it relevant to part of the application and you are less likely to encounter problems. Remember, if you list it on the application, you need to be ready to talk about it at the interview. This goes for GLBT issues as well as anything that someone might find controversial, ie, volunteering at/protesting in front of an abortion clinic or involvement in political or religious groups. You really never know what someone might or might not take issue with. So think about how comfortable you are talking about these topics at an interview and let that guide you. For the record, I was out on my applications where it was relevant and it was never an issue at any of my medical school interviews. It was generally discussed briefly, like all of my other stuff, and then we moved on.

What will my dating life be like in medical school if I am gay?

I imagine it will not be that different than that of your straight classmates with one exception. They will have the bulk of the single classmates of the opposite sex as potential dates, while you will likely find that there are few other GLBT students in your class. So your potential dating pool in medical school is likely to be small to non-existent. You may want to consider this and pick a school in an urban area with an active GLBT community, or a med school that is connected to a larger university community so you can meet people outside of medical school.

Will the school offer benefits to my same-sex partner? Should I ask about this at my interview?

The good news is that you can often find the answer to this by looking around on the school's website. Whether you ask about it at the interview really depends on your comfort level as we discussed above. Another option, if you are not comfortable asking in person, would be to anonymously email or call the university's HR office to find this out.

If I am in a same-sex marriage, civil union, or registered domestic partnership in my state, will it affect my financial aid?

It should not have any impact on your federal loans because they will not recognize the marriage and view you as a single person. It could potentially affect your eligibility for state or institutional loans if your spouse's/partner's income is recognized and considered. You'd have to check with your financial aid office.

I survived my first day of orientation. It was a general orientation and started with 4 hours of really boring talks about all kinds of administrative stuff--HIPAA, disaster planning, reducing medical errors, work hours, and stress. I got to meet a few of my fellow residents in pathology, which was cool to finally put faces to the names. Everyone was nice and seemed a bit overwhelmed but excited to finally be getting started.

After the morning of boredom, we were scattered to complete a number of tasks like fingerprinting, clinical skills workshops, the benefits fair, and getting an ID badge. The whole thing was a bit of a circus with long lines for everything. Luckily, I managed to hit the benefits fair at a lull and got some good information from the folks there. I also got through the clinical skills stuff pretty quickly and now am checked off as competent to use syringes, draw ABGs, start IVs, and do many other things that I am sure will be not used very much in my particular training program. Then it was on to get an ID badge which took well over 2 hours to get. It was a strange bonding experience with the other residents and fellows in the line as no one could figure out why it took so long. Oh well, at least it is done and I do not have to go back to get it another day.

We were given our long white coats. It was really strange to put it on and see the coat reaching down almost to knee length. After four years of the short white coat, this is going to take some getting used to.

Now I have a few days to do all of the online orientation stuff I need to do on my own before it all starts next Tuesday. It's going to be a busy next few days.

One piece of advice that I heard over and over when debating whether to go to medical school was, "if you think you can be happy doing something else, do not go into medicine." Overall, I think this is good advice and should be pondered when considering any career path. Unfortunately, the nature of choosing a career is that we make decisions based on the information we have available. In some cases this may be sufficient to make an informed decision, and in other cases it may not be. Looking back on my medical school experience I can now see that I wrote off entire specialties based on bad encounters on the wards that may or may not have been representative of what life would really have been like as that type of specialist. The same thing can apply when deciding whether to go to medical school. Your sources of information will run the range from physicians gung-ho to bitter and jaded, so try to get a variety of people to talk to.

In deciding to go to medical school I definitely thought about all of the other career paths I had thought about doing. Now that I am done with medical school, I have spent some time talking with friends who have taken those alternative paths and it is clear that the other paths all have their pros and cons as well and that,like with medical school, it is easy to fall into them without getting sufficient information about what life on the other side of the training is really like. When I look at what my alternatives could have been, it looks like going to medical school has left me in a decent position and I do not regret not pursuing any of the other paths.

I considered the PhD route in both the humanities and in the biological sciences. It seemed very appealing intellectually and would have been supported financially meaning little to no debt at the end. But the costs were also there, namely the lack of jobs, especially in the humanities which meant having to move anywhere if you were lucky enough to land an academic job with tenure. In the sciences it seemed like doing years of low-paying post-doc work after the PhD was becoming the norm as drying up grant funding made academic jobs harder to come by. I never had much interest in industry jobs and heard government positions have also been slashed. So this route seemed to make little sense for me. My friends who chose to go the PhD route all seem to have mixed feelings--excitement about the work and research they do, but tons of stress about their financial futures and the job market.

Then there was the law school option which I have discussed in the past. Suffice it to say that I am glad I did not go to law school. I tried working the corporate job but knew within a few weeks it was not for me. My friends who went the corporate route have been unhappy for the most part. Their comfortable salaries do not seem to make up for mindless, unfulfilling work, office drama, and general corporate b.s. Those who did have "fun" jobs at tech companies have generally been laid off with the crashing economy. Government work also seemed like corporate work with more bureaucracy, better benefits, and lower pay. Some of it was fulfilling, some of it was not.

So overall, they all have their pros and cons. Medical school and being a physician is not perfect, but clearly neither are any of the other things I considered. Think long and hard and pick a field that will annoy you the least and leave you the most fulfilled at the end of the day. In the end, medicine, like everything else, is a job for most people. Hopefully, it will be a stimulating job with a comfortable salary. If you can find that elsewhere, you might not want to go to medical school.

I'm going away for the weekend, so my musings on medical school will have to wait until I get back. It's my last little break before residency and I am happy to be getting away for a couple of days. Happy weekend everyone.

I have been meaning to write a post, or multiple posts, on this topic for awhile. It is a question I am often asked, in this form or others, ie "would you do it again," both by people close to me and in random emails I get. Before answering it I wanted to let the dust settle a bit after graduation. In pondering this I have realized that there is not a simple answer and it may indeed take me awhile to flush it all out.

But for those of you with short attention spans or who are just dying to know, here is the quick and dirty summary: I do not regret going to medical school, but I would not do it again. The summer before I started medical school a family friend, who is very brilliant and has had a very non-traditional journey through medicine, said, "medical school is something that is nice to have done." Now that I am finally done, I get it. It is hard to really put what it means into words. But if I try, in a nutshell: the training really sucks in many ways, but in the end you are a doctor and have many opportunities available to you.

Okay, if you are still reading I will try to break this whole question down a bit more and show you how I arrived at where I am today. I would venture to say that I was not the "typical premed" (although what is typical these days?) as I came to medicine a little later and did all of my science as a post-bac. I'd explored and written off some other career paths already, so I really wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. In addition to doing the volunteering, which in retrospect did expose me to some of the uglier realities of medicine at a county hospital, hospice, and in a developing country, I read books, blogs, and talked to a lot of people. This gave me a pretty good sense of the discontent a lot of physicians had with their jobs and also of the fact that medical school would be rough and frustrating at times. Overall, I wondered for awhile about whether I really wanted to put myself through all of it, and when I made the decision to go to medical school definitely entered without rose-colored glasses on.

Even so, there is still a degree of naivety that we all have when we start. I was very excited and optimistic about medicine in many respects. I looked forward to helping my patients and meeting great classmates. Additionally, I knew it would be "bad," but even that knowledge could not prepare me for the reality of how awful it was at times. There were the months of mind-numbing, tedious memorization, sleepless nights standing around in the hospital doing nothing, degrading interactions with the medical hierarchy, and all of the stress of boards, residency applications, and seemingly never-ending exams and shelf exams. I would not want to do it again.

Through all of it there were also some great times, and some of the most hilarious moments of my life. You begin to see as you move into the clinical years that there really is something for everyone in medicine. It is a very broad field and likely there is a good fit specialty, or two or three, out there for you. And even if there is not, the MD is a very respected and versatile degree that can open doors in business, research, public health, teaching, and many other non-traditional medical career paths. Once you have that realization and find your niche so to speak, the journey gets a lot better. You can see light at the end of the tunnel and it seems like the future is bright.

Of course, the grind of residency and all of the frustrations of practicing medicine in our healthcare system loom ahead. So I am feeling a sense of deja vu now as I find myself excited about starting residency and looking forward to the intellectual challenge of mastering pathology, yet feeling a sense of dread about how "bad" it will be at times. Ask me again in 4-5 years if it was worth it and hopefully I will still have no regrets.

Here are a few things I have seen recently:

The NY Times most emailed article of yesterday and today is about physician frustration. There's not much here that will likely surprise any of you who frequent this blog. But apparently the public has enjoyed/hated/been surprised by this article due to its popularity.

Reader's Digest's presents secrets your doctor would never share with you. Once again, probably not a huge revelation to those of us in the field, but I do realize how little of this I knew before medical school.

New York magazine recently did its annual Best Doctors issue. There are several interesting articles (in addition to doctor ratings) including one on HAART and current mortality from HIV/AIDS.

Yes, pathology residents do have to take call. But it will be nothing like what many of my friends will be going through this year doing q3 or q4. I got an email today that the call schedule is in the works and I can expect to be on call q13 + some weekends/holidays. I have no idea what this call truly entails other than answering many pages in the night regarding blood products, but I am sure I will find out all of the gory details in due time. It should be interesting.

uo apparently I managed to catch the sore throat bug that was going around the class at our graduation events last weekend. I thought I had escaped. Then on Thursday evening I started noticing some really funky, tender submandibular and anterior cervical adenopathy on my left side. By Friday evening my throat hurt pretty badly on the left when I swallowed, but I felt fine otherwise. I hung out with some friends in the afternoon, went to another friend's dance performance and a dinner that night. But yesterday I started to feel like I had been hit by a truck--body aches, fatigue, headache, and the sore throat. I moped around most of the day.

Of course, when it rains it pours; in the midst of my feeling like crap, we started to smell natural gas pretty strongly. So it meant a visit from the power company to determine we did not have a gas leak from the pipe, but likely a malfunctioning switch on the really tacky gas fireplace that is in our new living room. Since we will likely not use it much, we had them just shut the gas off to the fireplace. Problem solved. The dude was very thorough about checking everything and told us we definitely did the right thing to call and get it looked at now before it created an even worse situation.

Today I feel a bit better but still definitely not 100%. Thankfully, I am not starting residency tomorrow like a number of my friends are, so I will have time to kick this thing. Ironically, I was just reading an article in some journal about the attitude among many physicians that we just need to keep working through illness and are wimps if we call in sick. I definitely saw that mentality at work on the wards and it can be pretty destructive. You are not your best when you are sick and can make mistakes and provide substandard care. Plus by coming in you expose your patients and colleagues to whatever you have. Not a good situation. I can only hope that eventually rational thinking will prevail on this issue in general.

I thought medical school had done it. Beginning in my first year of medical school, as I spent hours memorizing minutiae off of Powerpoint slides, I noticed that my ability to stay focused when reading texts was decreasing. I chalked it up to the tedious nature of the materials I was reading as anatomy and biochemistry texts are pretty dry stuff. In the past I was an avid reader who devoured fiction and even non-fiction books whenever I could get my hands on them. And, in tune with my liberal arts education, I enjoyed contemplating what I read and discussing it with others. I remember reading a couple of works of fiction during the summer after my first year had ended and feeling relieved when after a couple of days my ability to stay focused seemed to return.

But as the years of medical school went by, the problem seems to have grown worse. Perhaps I have gotten too used to having "important" ideas presented to me in bullet points on the Powerpoint slides or in abstracts at the top of the journal articles. Now I find that my attention span for reading has diminished across the board. Whether it is a textbook, journal article, work of fiction, or even blog post, it is hard to stay engaged for long.

It must have been medical school that did this to me, right? Memorizing and regurgitating, skimming articles to find one to bring up the next day on the wards... or even worse just pulling up an UpToDate clinical summary and presenting that. The type of learning one does in medical school is generally the antithesis of most intellectual endeavors. So it would stand to reason that after four years of this type of learning I now find it harder to stay focused and to actually slow down and to contemplate what I am reading.

Then today I stumbled across an article by Nicholas Carr in this month's Atlantic entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The second paragraph summed up my struggle of the past several years, "I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy.... That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do." In his case the culprit is not medical school but the Internet with its vast amount of information that can be accessed rapidly with the click of a mouse. Following the trail from hyperlink to hyperlink, from text to movies, has apparently affected other bloggers and writers who are all noticing decreasing attention spans and changes in their way of thinking.

Maybe it is not just medical school that has changed my thinking. Ironically, all of my online reading and web surfing, which was often an attempt to keep reading and writing in the little bits of free time I did have in medical school, may have contributed as well. The article goes on to discuss the plasticity of the brain, how different changes in technology have shaped the way we process information over the centuries, and how Google's and the Internet's creation of an information network that essentially serves as a sort of artificial intelligence may have the potential to transform our culture. It is definitely worth a read and is great food for thought.

But, be warned, it requires staying focused through 4 hyperlinked pages of text and not getting distracted by any of the links in the sidebars that tempt you to skim rapidly and click away. Such are the ironies of Internet media.

This case comes from today's New York Times. It raises an interesting question: can a pediatrician dismiss a patient because he does not like the child's parent? In this case there is a little twist--the mother does not believe in preventive vaccinations. I wonder had she not shared this view with the physician would he have acted in the same manner or would he have not had the grounds for dismissal?

Holy crap, I am really a doctor! That was essentially the title of the Evite I sent out for my graduation party that happened yesterday. And it pretty much sums up what I am feeling today. It is really surreal. After four long years, that actually did move pretty quickly overall, it is all over. I cannot believe it. And to realize that the State of California has conferred an MD upon me, when I feel I know very little at this stage, is a bit daunting. But logically I know that this whole journey is just beginning and eventually I will have the knowledge and confidence to be a good provider.

The graduation itself was quite good. Given that there were only ~100 MD graduates and about fifteen MPH graduates, the whole thing was under two hours. Our speakers were very good and it was a nice touch to have the same faculty member who welcomed us at our induction ceremony send us off into the world as newly minted physicians. Davis has a unique tradition where each student could have two family members/friends walk across the stage with us. My parents walked with me, which was very nice, and all of my guests said they got good seating and had a good view of the action. My only minor complaint about the ceremony was how hot it was. The heavy, black velvet doctoral robes were hot, especially under the stage lighting. And being hooded was interesting--a bit tight on the airway. The hood was green, the color of medicine, with blue and gold trim for the University of California.

After the ceremony we all hung around for a reception in the lobby. It was nice to get to say goodbye to some of the faculty members who had been very supportive and for them to get to meet my family. Unfortunately, it was so crowded I did not get to see and say goodbye to some of my friends who I will likely not see for awhile. It was strange to think that after spending so much time for the last four years with my classmates that I will likely not see many of them for a long time. As with any transition, we will all be moving on to new places and experiences. But I know that I will stay in touch with the people I became close to over the last four years.

My party the next day was a fun celebration and it was fun to see some people who I have not seen very much over the last four years. It will be nice to re-kindle some of the friendships that medical school and its time commitment put a damper on. Then again, who knows it residency will be much better. We can only hope... at least going into pathology I have no traditional intern year, so that's a start.

The Lone Coyote, MD.

It's official.

More later.

Just found this link courtesy of Graham:

http://www.noacutedistress.com/

It is one student's take on how to defer your loans at this critical time for deferral. I have not read through it, so read it for yourself take it with the requisite grain of salt like anything else on the Internet. But hopefully it will be helpful to someone.

I'm chilling in a hotel in downtown Sacramento before heading over to the medical school for the last time. It is hard to believe this is really about to end on Saturday.

We had the Senior Awards Banquet last night. It was in a really cool old bank building in downtown that had been converted into a banquet hall. The food was actually pretty good (not that I could eat much of it) and much better than the food at some other ceremonies I have attended. Some of my friends in the class are rock stars, so it was nice to see them collect some awards last night as expected. And it was really great to see some people who I think will be great doctors, and who have not often been recognized, take away some of the awards too.

There were some class gag awards as well. Yours truly was selected as one of a number of students "Most Likely to Win a Nobel Prize" and "Most Likely to Have a Finding Named After Them." That surprised me. Maybe I will find that tumor marker for ovarian cancer or write tons of award winning novels. Who knows. Or better yet The Lone Coyote Sign... I'll have to think about that one.

We have DSL. Finally. And I got a new laptop. I managed to find one of the last machines without Windows Vista on it. It took driving to a different store in another city, but it was totally worth it to get XP. After hearing so many Dell horror stories, which I was lucky enough to escape with my Dell laptop for the last 4 years, I went with a Lenovo (formerly IBM) in the end. They got the highest ratings in Consumer Reports and did not seem that much more pricey than other brands like Toshiba and Sony.

Now I am waiting for out cable provider to show up. We are approaching the last hour of the "installation window"I was given for this morning. I hope they show soon because I would like to get out of the house and hit the gym at some point today.

Anyway, more blogging later. It's nice to be back in business.

Sorry for being MIA the past few days. My laptop bit the dust at a cafe on Friday night. I know it is a Windows problem and not the hard drive at least. Frankly, I got 4+ years out of it and all I wanted was for it to make it through med school. It basically did that, so I can't complain too much. I managed to get it going long enough yesterday to get most of my important stuff off of it for now, and once I replace it I can pull out the hard drive.

We also still do not have DSL. Moving really gives you a chance to evaluate your providers and our great company that we had no problems with up to this point is not distinguishing itself. They blame the phone company for not updating our # in some database. The phone company, which I know is not great on customer service, blames the DSL company. For now, the DSL company gave me a "free" dial-up account until the problem is resolved. Blogging on dial-up blows, but going to cafes and buying unwanted $4 drinks to use the Internet or driving around to look for wireless is getting old too.

In other news, I tried venison for the first time over the weekend. I am one to try out bizarre meats, and this one is not really that out there compared to others. It was just okay--kind of tough and gamey. I think I prefer bison or ostrich which lack the gamey taste and have much less fat than beef.

The graduation festivities begin this week. There are a bunch of class social events, the Senior Banquet, and loan exit counseling before the big event on Saturday. Speaking of loans, does anyone really understand their loan paperwork? There seem to be different numbers on each set I get from different sources: the school printout, the government. I guess I'll have to trust the government on this one seeing as I owe the $$$ to them. It looks like I may want to do another consolidation too. Hopefully, the session later in the week will make it all clear. Our financial aid office is quite good.

So this week I hope to order a new laptop, get DSL and cable in, get the wrinkles out of my gown for graduation without ironing, understand my loans, figure out what has to be done to register for Step 3, finish unpacking, and have some time to relax before graduation. We'll see how much I can accomplish. Once I get a new computer, or at least DSL in, hopefully I can write some of the posts I would like to do on the end of medical school.

8 days until graduation. It is crazy how suddenly it seems to have crept up on me. Since I finished all of my requirements in early May, I have almost forgotten that medical school exists except in the flurry of emails about graduation, loans, and people's books and furniture for sale that I get daily. I am SO glad I had a significant chunk of time off at the end of this year to focus on moving and everything else that needs to be done before I get started on residency.

I have been talking with friends and am realizing that I will be starting much later than most of then. My orientation seems briefer and I do not have to do ACLS. So I end up with a couple of extra weeks to get settled before having to worry about starting to work. Unfortunately, I realize that I now must begin to study for Step 3. Since my knowledge base of clinical medicine has nowhere to go but down during pathology residency, it is to my advantage to take it as soon as possible. So once I get more unpacked and our freaking DSL gets set up (we're still without Internet), I need to spend some time with my favorite friend USMLEWorld and get ready to take the final installment of the beast we know as boards in July.

The move went flawlessly. Best move I have ever had. Now I am buried under unpacking,

And, we have no DSL because they cannot find our phone number. Hmmm. So it may be a few days. I am in serious internet withdrawal. In fact, I am typing this from the car in the dark as we have had to go cruising around to find wireless networks to jump on at night. Parking near cafes works the best so far.

Not much else to say right now and my battery is nearly dead. More later I hope.

In about 12 hours the movers will be here to take away all of our crap. Just about everything is boxed except for a bit of annoying clutter. I am out of boxes and have turned to suitcases at this point.

Since this is the first "real" move I have made, I thought I would share a bit about what I have learned in the past few weeks about making big moves and hiring movers. I have found it is much more complicated than the moves involving your friends, a few cars or maybe a truck if you're lucky, and some pizza, beer, and sore backs at the end of the day.

I can tell you what not to do first based on my one other experience with movers. If you liked my recent Craigslist story I posted, you'll appreciate this one. I was about 21, pretty clueless about moving, and was desperate to get out of a toxic roommate situation that I had found on, you guessed it, Craigslist. So, where do I go to look for a mover? Yup, Craigslist. I talked to some guy who said he had his own truck and could do my small move in a couple of hours for really cheap. The day of the job he called to say he was "in an accident returning a rental truck" and could not come. What was that about owning his own truck? I later found out he had done the same thing to many other people and they all posted their experiences on Craigslist whenever he put up his ad. Soon he was out of business on Craigslist at least.

The moral of the story is do your research before you book a mover. People who get screwed most by movers are those who pick an random mover online without checking them out. It turns out there are some really sketchy moving companies out there. They can run the range from incompetent (see above) to criminal (ie holding your crap hostage on a truck or in storage until you pay them lots of money to get it released). If California is on your moving itinerary, check out the CPUC Moving site. These guys regulate movers so you can check if the company you are considering has complaints filed against it, and if it is properly insured. Check and see if your state has something similar. If not, your local Better Business Bureau is another place you can inquire about the customer satisfaction with a particular company. MovingScam is another great site for checking companies out. They also have a SuperList of movers in the message board section that runs down most companies in each area by state and what feedback has been left about them on the site.

Pick a few companies and ask them to come out and do an in-person estimate. This is really important. I found some companies did not want to do this and relied on emailed inventory lists or your summary of your stuff on the phone. You want an estimate so that you have some idea of what ti will cost you, and so that on the day of the move they can't tell you "you have way more stuff than we thought, so it is going to cost you tons more money." Get several estimates and compare before you book a company. We found the prices varied drastically. And seeing how the company functions in person for the estimate can give you a gut feeling about hiring them. The company that called to re-schedule our estimate to later and later in the day and sent a creepy dude did not get our business.

In California moving companies are supposed to give you a "not to exceed" price with the estimate. No matter what happens, this will be the most you will pay. All of the companies that came out gave us this price. Be wary if such a thing is typical in your area and they refuse to do it. Read up about the insurance they offer to cover your stuff and be sure you understand what it covers before you buy.

We have done all of this and picked a company with a very good reputation that gave us a good price. We'll see how it all unfolds tomorrow. I may be without Internet access for a few days, but I'll do my best to report back with an update.