Can I get a litre of COLA
I remember the spring of 2025, because at the end of March, I got this text from my cousin: "I matched! NYC, baby! Let's goooooo!" complete with a string of emojis.
I, of course, responded with the appropriate level of familial enthusiasm, which is just a carefully calibrated blend of feigned excitement and thinly veiled sarcasm. "Congrats, man! You're going to be so rich and successful.... Can I borrow twenty bucks?"
He replied with a string of laughing emojis, oblivious to the fact that I was only half-joking.
A few weeks later, the soon-to-be Dr. Ramen Noodle came to visit. Bro was still glowing from matching into top residency (and crippling debt, low self-esteem, getting yelled at by nurses...). It's ok; every bubble pops, eventually.
"It's going to be epic," bro is clearly flexing at this point. "The hospital is world-renowned, the attendings are gods, and the city... well, it's New York City!"
"Yeah," I said, "It's also a city where a studio apartment costs more than a vital organ on the black market. Have you even run numbers on the cost of living?"
"Dude, I'm going to be a resident. They pay us, like, a salary."
Right.
I stared at him, my mind flashing to the countless Reddit threads I had bookmarked, here and there. I gently broke the news to him that a resident's salary in a high-cost-of-living city is essentially a rounding error in the city's budget.
"It can't be that bad," he said. I showed him those Reddit threads. Caught in 4K, he had no counterargument. He probably hates me now.
Anyways, to get some closure (and prove my point), I did what any self-respecting, sleep-deprived medical student would do: I procrastinated on my own work and created a color-coded, interactive map that cross-referenced resident salaries with the cost of living (COLA) in major cities in the country.
Emailed this to him the map today with Subject: "Welcome to the Thunderdome, cousin. You're going to love it."
Haven't seen a reply. Gotta let him stew on it. Bet you he wants a litre of COLA.
