Relashionship risk factors for the medical student. When home becomes work and work becomes home. Becoming a nursing student changes “home” culture where home is no longer a safe haven, but rather a noisy interlude maybe filled with screaming children, loud TV, continuous interuptions, a bitter and feuding spouce or partner, and no reward or end in sight. School and the hospital, on the other hand, has become the haven from home life. The class room or hospital offers social gaherings, incentives, and opportunities to furher one’s carreer. The expectations of school and work are set, and many students and workers are socialized into settings by various means of scolar recognition, training, promotions, and other standardized methods that organizations often set up as a way of promoting and maintaining a positive culture. Conversely, there is no set way to standardize one's home life, and in an increasingly money-driven culture, there isn't as much incentive to do so when the demands of work financially overshadow what needs to be done at home.

For nurses-in-training, the classroom and later the hospital literally becomes home for many students when they are on the wards. This lifestyle creates problems when these recently graduated nurses eventually return to a more normal lifestyle with more subsequent hours at home with their significant other. Many nurses may feel more comfortable at work in the hospital culture, and the familial home may seem like a burden or a game with shifting rules and expectations that may seem to change daily. Spouses might feel abandoned by the years of long hours and the seeming lack of desire of their nurse spouses to return home. This is especially a problem for spouses who are not a part of the medical field themselves and who do not understand why the hospital is so important in their significant others' lives. Many couples, however, who are both in the profession, may also suffer because they each establish the hospital as "home" instead of forming their own distinct marriage culture separate from the hospital.
Both types of relationships often use professional obligations such as additional training to remain in the workplace and to maintain the now-adaptive work-home schism.

I knew that I would eventually use my behavioral science degree for something other than to get a date.