Schedule for aways / applying after graduation

Hi!

I have a unique situation and was hoping to get some feedback on elements of my plan. I'm a 4th year med student in the US scheduled to graduate this year, but my wife is in another city about 6 hours away for 2 years of grad school. At the end of those two years, she has to move to a third city for her job. Obviously, it would be ideal if we wouldn't have to live apart for years at a time so I am considering doing a year of research following graduation, which would finish at the same time as her grad school, and then start my residency in the third city (ideally). I have three quick questions:

1) In order to do this, I'd have to do my away electives in March and April of this year. Is this too early for aways? I already did a rotation at my home program so they wouldn't be my first ortho exposure, but I'm concerned that they won't remember me when the ranking time comes.

2) Is there a disadvantage to applying for residency following graduation? I've looked at the statistics and it appears to be much more difficult to match as an 'independent' applicant than a 'US Senior". However, the 'independent' category includes re-applicants and FMGs so it seems impossible to predict how applying after graduation would affect a US senior applying for the first time after med school. Any thoughts?

3) Should I simply 'postpone' graduation for one year and apply as a US Senior? I could then do away electives this upcoming summer. The reason this isn't as appealing is because most post-doc fellowships require a commitment of at least one year, which means it needs to start in June. Also, the salary difference between a pre-doc researcher and a post-doc researcher is huge (~20,000 vs ~40,000).

Hope this wasn't too long. I'm in desperate need of advice. Thanks for your help!

Well. In the grand scheme of all this 20K may seem like a lot of money but in reality thats nothing. So I have learned to never make a decision based soley on money.

To put it in perspective....my ortho residency and fellowship interviews...including suits, travel, lodging, registration....have cost neraly 20 grand.....

If I were you....live the year apart and figure it out....you should just apply straight off like everyone else...

I hate to tell you this...but its much harder to get an ortho residency than a year long research job...so you need to priortize and put your career first for logical reasons....

and dont worry about the 20 difference...its peanuts in the big picture.

I'm not an attending but I can tell you that your best option from an application standpoint is to not finish medical school and apply as a US senior, ie prolong your fourth year coursework over the course of 2 years and do research concomitantly.