“If we’re going to date and get married, I want to make sure you understand that I’m GOING to become a doctor, and I need you to be on board with that.”

My name is Curtis Webster Jr and I’m a Dad Married to Doctor (DMD). My wife, Emergency Medicine Physician, Dr. Allison Webster, knew from the age of 6 watching Dr. Hux- table on TV that she wanted to practice medicine. When we met, day one at UNC Chapel Hill and started dating 6 months later, she made sure I was aware of her goal… and I’m glad she did.

Now 15 years of marriage and 3 amazing daughters later, I realize how I had NO CLUE what I was agreeing to. There have been some amazing ups and downs during our medical marriage. There were times I felt very isolated and alone with very few I could turn to that would truly understand the DMD lifestyle.

While the US statistic for women in medical schools is just now reaching 50.5% my wife’s class was already half female in 2005. By her graduation in 2010, there were several physician families, but the support group that was created for them catered to the medical students.

During our entire married lives, I have worked (in and out of the home) while serving as the primary caregiver to our children alongside an amazing wife who herself has also worked (more than
a full time schedule in residency) and also gone out of her way to be involved in the lives of our children.

After finishing residency, we completed our 4th move in 9 years, welcomed our third daughter and added a new and very exciting zero to the end of Allison’s salary. At that same time, we also upgraded our car to accommodate three kids, built a new home, and oh yeah, we were immediately hit with six figures of student loan and credit card debt that had been piling up.

With all these changes and new experiences that neither of us felt prepared to handle, we both were looking for an outlet. We both were looking for support. Allison found it in a newly established group of Physician Moms. I searched and looked and asked around, but could not find a community for me. December 27, 2014, right after we celebrated Christmas and started looking toward our goals for the new year, I decided to create what I had always been looking for, and Dads Married to Doctors was born.

Now with over 4,000 members throughout our global community, we have a MISSION to strengthen the physician family by empowering and educating one another to become better dads and husbands. A support system of men committed to helping one another bridge the gap between fatherhood, marriage and manhood.

Through our private Facebook group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/dadsmarriedtodoctors/, and our website, http://www.dadsmarriedtodoctors.com, we provide curated content and resources to our members such as:

• Community posts and interactive conversations
• Blog articles from DMD members and guests
• Virtual Discussion Forums and Guest speaker events
• Regular local meetups/events in several cities (now held virtually)
• Book Club and educational led discussion
• Yearly DMD Retreats
• DMD Spotlight Podcast
• DMD Gives Back, our charitable
fundraising initiative that’s donated
$10,000 to date.

DMD member SB said, “I am so grateful for DMD. I was really struggling internally before joining and now I’m much more confident in my role as a husband, a father, a man, and a DMD! We’re here to support each other. DMD4LIFE!”

Serving as the primary caregiver for our families and supporting our busy physician spouses is a very unique role. For many men, this role reversal, according to our societal norms, creates a
lot of additional stress. Along with our spouses, we all have the normal worries of life such as finances, providing for aging parents, raising kids, maintaining or improving our own health, work,
household responsibilities and more. DMD lifestyle is all about us doing life together and learning from each other to create a better life and lifestyle for our families and communities. I have seen in our 5+ years of doing life together that strong personal connections are one of the main ways physician spouses can not only survive a medical marriage, but thrive in a medical marriage.
Life is better, when we do life together!