Couples Matching IM + Rural/Regional Fam Med - seeking advice

[Aceso]

Hi there, I am a M4 interested in IM and hoping to couples match with a partner looking to do regional/rural fam med. The issue we are finding is that a lot of regional rural programs are non-commutable from the city. Regional rural training is very imp to my partner as they wish to do rural locums after training and feel they would be most confident with training at such sites. 

Can anyone offer insight how urban fam med grads found working for rural/regional locums after training ?

Also if you have, or know of couples who matched to IM and regional/rural fam med, what were the locations? We are from Ontario and preferring to stay here. Also given COVID, it is very competitive to try to match to specific regional programs that take 2 residents, without having rotated through here. 

Any insight/ advice would be appreciated ! 

Thanks

[bearded frog]

I'm not in family, but if your SO did an urban residency but was obviously interested in rural/did rural electives/kept up proficiency with the broad knowledge/skills required then I don't think it would matter much in general for locum opportunities, other than the lack of networking within that specific area if you were to do a rural family med program for instance. Your match list can be any combination, so you guys need to come up with a list of programs your SO would be interested in that are within an hour or so of a IM program, and see if you can rank those combos at the top, but your SO should still apply to urban programs and rank those below in combo with your choices. Obviously you can have your ideal placement but if being together is more imporant than a rural vs urban FM program, in the end the match may decide for you, and in the end matching to any program is far more important than rural vs urban (or living together vs long distance for two years IMHO).