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| Emily and Tyler Hunter are both third-year students at the USA College of Medicine. Photo credit: Ashton Clark Photography |
Tyler and his wife, Emily, also a medical student at the USA College of Medicine, originally met in middle school. They started dating their sophomore year of high school and eventually got married their senior year of undergraduate school at USA.
“We have always been interested in healthcare,” Emily said. “Growing up, I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian, later deciding to pursue training as a nurse while in high school and entering college. It wasn’t until my second-year of college that I decided I’d rather become a doctor.”
Now, the Hunters are beginning their third year of medical school.
According to Tyler, the key to being married to another medical student is to establish healthy stress management skills. “Medical students love comparing themselves to others – even if it is their spouse,” he said. “To manage this stress, we have gone through several seasons of our medical life where we shared class time together, but did not share our grades with one another.”
Tyler also credits premarital counseling for establishing a healthy foundation prior to medical school. “Premarital counseling was extremely useful for our relationship and it let us go into our marriage knowing what expectations to have and how we react to stress,” he said. “When people are stressed, they can put less work into their relationships. It is important to be aware of this and take steps to avoid any problems.”
According to Tyler, finances are also a huge topic for arguments among couples and he thanks the U.S. Army for helping to eliminate that stressor in his marriage. “The Army’s Health Professions Scholarship Program allows us to have our school paid for and a monthly stipend to live on,” he said. “It has given financial peace of mind while also helping the men and women who serve our country.”
Though unsure of what specialty they each want to practice at this point, Emily and Tyler are already looking forward to Match Day 2022. “We would prefer to have different specialties to increase our chances of being able to find a single hospital where we can both complete our residencies,” Tyler said. “As of now, we both share an interest in internal medicine, infectious diseases and pulmonology and critical care.”
Emily said she extremely lucky to go through medical school with her best friend. “He understands what the stress is like from a first-hand experience and encourages me to be my best self every day,” she said.
