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Please pardon the potential naivete in my questions...and feel free to redirect me to other posts or sources of information if need be.
My wife and I currently live in the U.S. and have been considering BC as one potential destination to explore in the years following the completion of her medical training. She's an emergency physician, about to finish residency, and I'm a retired IT worker aiming to be a stay-at-home dad.
I'm familiar with some of the basics of life in Canada from my business travels (differences in taxation, how healthcare and employer benefits work, various social and political differences, that sort of thing) but as someone who's always been merely a visitor, I don't have a solid concept of how cost of living really works out day-by-day for folks who live in the city.
Setting aside any issues with obtaining employment (that's a whole different topic and my wife is researching that) what I'm mostly curious about is, on the whole do hospital physicians in the Vancouver area generally do well enough to support a small family (one or two children) on a single income?
Just to clarify, we're not into McMansions, expensive SUVs, hundreds of cable television channels, or other sorts of pretentious living (I only mention this because it tends to set us apart a little bit from some stereotypes associated with physicians and IT professionals in the states). Basically we just like to eat healthy food and enjoy "city life" stuff like parks, museums, libraries, shows, festivals, and the like. We'd be perfectly happy in a 3BR condo someplace, especially if it had good access to public transit.
Does this sort of a life sound feasible in Vancouver, or silly...and most importantly, why or why not?
It's totally feasible to live the kind of life you are describing as an emergency room Dr. in Van. My son is an emerg Dr. and he told me he makes 3 times the amount of the average family Dr. He works 15 shifts per month. He loves it because the only overhead he has is he hires a bookkeeper to do his billing for him. All Dr billing is done to the provincial health ministry and he finds it a chore so he hires out for it. His wife is presently a resident in anastetics and so she is making a little income from that. He makes enough however that she is considering accepting a fellowship that pays almost nothing and he says he can easily afford it. Housing in Vancouver is expensive but not outrageous. They bought a brand new 4 bedroom house about 8 miles from downtown for $500,000. Its a beautiful house and neighborhood and there is continuing development all around it. It's right on the Frasier river and I just love it there. My son tells me that there is a huge shortage of emergency room Dr.s here. I would safely estimate that his income must be $300,000 or more per year. Now his hospital is a very busy one and he gets paid by piece work. He likes to be busy at work. I travel all over North America and have been to every major city there is.I have not been to one that I like more than Vancouver. Good luck to you and yours however you decide.
I really hate my sisters keyboard. I just wrote a big long continuation to my reply and I lost it somehow. PFFFTT. Anyway what I was saying was that Doctors live a very good lifestyle here without making medicine your whole life. My daughter in law had a baby a while back and my son can easily afford a live in Nanny. Total cost of about $40,000 a year. Another important point that you probably know already but I think it's important for anyone considering medicine here is that we don't have the same problem with litigation here as in the USA. Therefore insurance premiums for doctors are inexpensive. My other son that lives here is a lawyer and he tells me that it's very difficult to sue a doctor here unless it's a case of GROSS negligence which most doctors have no fear of.
AS for the rest of your question about Vancouver as a place to live? I give the place an A plus rating for my own reasons. My reasons are similar to what you state your preferences are.
Parks: Van has great parks. Stanley park is the biggest urban park in North America and it's really a beauty. There are lots of other great parks and botanical gardens in the city. I love the Japanese garden at UBC. The only other one that I have seen that compares is in Portland. A city by the way that has a lot of similarities to Van. UBC also has one of the best anthropology museums in the world. It specializes in west coast Native culture which is very prevalent here. Van also has a first class art museum that I can spend days in.
Food: The lower mainland of BC is a foodie's heaven. It's one of the biggest reasons that I like to spend time out here. Great food from every culture you can imagine because Vancouver is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world. There is quite an organic health food subculture here and overall it seems to be a very health oriented place.
Arts and festivals: Because of the cultural scene there seems to always be some kind of fest going on. It's just an ongoing fact of life in the lower mainland of BC. It's a mecca for arts and crafts and there are real gems like the Granville island market where all the artisans show and sell their work. It reminds me a lot of Oregon in that respect in fact the city that has the closest feel to Van for me is Portland. Less diverse but vibrant. Van has a lot of local plays and shows but it's not like Toronto or NY city in that respect. There are however a lot of movies and TV shows filmed in the city.
Sports and recreation: I think that in this area Vancouver can't be matched by any city anywhere. Big mountain skiing right in the city. World class boating and fishing right on your doorstep. An out of doors that is just too beautiful to describe. If you watched the Olympics you may have got the picture of it. Just this weekend my son and I drove up north a whistler and camped in a pristine mountain wilderness. We were surrounded by glaciers and old growth rain forests. Have you ever stood beside a cedar tree that is 40 feet around. We tracked a cougar a bit and steered away from grizzly bear tracks. There were deer and eagles around our campsite and when we got tired we hiked to a hot spring and soaked all our worries away.
Climate: People complain about the climate but I like it. I came out here for the games in Feb. and it was already spring. Flowers were blooming and it was warm. Too warm for the skiers. The summers are cool and dry. I like cool so it suits me fine. If you are a gardener things grow like crazy here. Have you ever seen a palm tree north of the USA border? Well there are lots of them here. It rains quite a bit in the late fall and early winter but when I'm at home in the east in the blizzards and snow I would rather be at my sisters in Van working in the garden that's for sure.
I'd move here in a minute but we have 6 kids in the east and my wife can't leave her brood of little grandchildren. We will soon have more out here so maybe some day???
They bought a brand new 4 bedroom house about 8 miles from downtown for $500,000. Its a beautiful house and neighborhood and there is continuing development all around it. It's right on the Frasier river and I just love it there. My son tells me that there is a huge shortage of emergency room Dr.s here. I would safely estimate that his income must be $300,000 or more per year. Now his hospital is a very busy one and he gets paid by piece work. He likes to be busy at work. I travel all over North America and have been to every major city there is.I have not been to one that I like more than Vancouver.
There are many things about Vancouver that attract us, and many things (which you touch upon in your second post) about Canada in general which are attractive to a family basing their livelihood on healthcare. One facet of life in Vancouver which worries me a little, though, is overall cost of living. Since it sounds like you've traveled a lot, would you mind providing some feedback on what life in Vancouver is like relative to other major Canadian metro areas?
For example, it concerns me that housing prices in Vancouver are so relatively high. It seems like many people are forced into living in suburbs there, which is fine if that's one's own preference, but we'd really like at least the option of being able to live very close-in to a city's core (a row house or a condo, etc). In someplace like Toronto, that seems much more feasible, where in Vancouver it seems (from my limited online research so far, feel free to disprove) like that might be prohibitively expensive.
.... what I'm mostly curious about is, on the whole do hospital physicians in the Vancouver area generally do well enough to support a small family (one or two children) on a single income? ...... Does this sort of a life sound feasible in Vancouver, or silly...and most importantly, why or why not?
Lucknow posted a great response to you, there's not much more I could add to that. I do think the kind of lifestyle you've outlined would be a snap for your family. Furthermore, if you were to move here you'd find there are many other doctors and their families who prefer to live a similar laid-back and non-pretentious lifestyle such as you desire for yourselves. My own doctor is one of them. He travelled the world and then immigrated to Vancouver. He started out as a hospital physician and then opened up his own office as a family GP while continuing to do one day a week either in the ER or in one of the walk-in clinics. His wife remained a stay at home mom, they have raised a family of 3 children here very comfortably. He says when their family goes on vacations they prefer to take their vacations touring different places in the province as nothing else beats it for family fun and plenty of things to do and see.
The whole "city of neighborhoods" thing amuses me a little bit. Toronto claims the same nickname, and come to think of it so does Pittsburgh (where we live now). I wonder, are there really any great cities out there without interesting and unique neighborhoods?
I'm still kind of concerned about cost of living though. It seems like renting in the city isn't too bad, but buying looks really inflated compared to other cities in Canada (at least to my limited knowledge, please feel free to amend/correct!). From what I can tell from looking at web sites (obviously, pretty limited versus first hand knowledge from natives) it sounds like emergency physicians get paid more in Toronto and the cost of living is relatively cheaper. Of course, I realize the climate and a lot of other things about Vancouver are amazing I'm just asking whether these perceptions are grounded...
Zoisite, I like the link a lot, but don't you think it's a little outdated (statistics are about 10 years old)?
Yes I agree, but the thing is our last census was 2006 and I haven't been able to find another similar more up-to-date site yet that shows such stats as average family income, housing/rentals, population and number of dwellings per hectare per neighbourhood, etc.
If someone else can find a more up-to-date site that shows similar type stats I think it would be great if it could be posted here.
One facet of life in Vancouver which worries me a little, though, is overall cost of living.
Quote:
Originally Posted by khyron
For example, it concerns me that housing prices in Vancouver are so relatively high. It seems like many people are forced into living in suburbs there, which is fine if that's one's own preference, but we'd really like at least the option of being able to live very close-in to a city's core (a row house or a condo, etc).
Quote:
Originally Posted by khyron
In someplace like Toronto, that seems much more feasible, where in Vancouver it seems (from my limited online research so far, feel free to disprove) like that might be prohibitively expensive.
Doctors can live comfortably here in Vancouver. One can rent a SFH in good neighborhoods on the west side for as low as $2k - $3k a month.
My Aunt works in Calgary and she will not relocate to Vancouver. To each her own. You can check out the site of Alberta Health Services.
My neighbor in her 80s, her only son is a doctor in Toronto. She visits them (son & family) twice a year, and they too. People are just happy be it Vancouver or Toronto.
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