Yeah, scaredy, I LOVE small towns! Your spouse’s job offer is a LOT of $$ to work in a small town!
There are several towns of 800 to 2000 population which I would have LOVED to retire to but the nearest hospital is 23-35 miles away (on icy roads 9+ months per year). The nearest trauma center is 90-100 miles away (road closed to/from it intermittently due to weather, avalanche) and the nearest (major) trauma center with a helicopter landing strip is 350+ miles away.
Even the town with the hospital (16K pop) can’t keep providers there for any length of time. Providers do tend to stay a little longer in the town with the trauma center (20-23K pop, incl surrounding areas).
Believe it or not, those (under 2K pop) towns are mostly inhabited by the over-55 set and all they have is ONE working dentist, ONE (retired) doctor and a (paid and volunteer) search and rescue team to share between them.
I’ve posted here before that if one decides to retire to a bucolic place like these small towns, they have to accept that they have decided to live out the rest of their lives in “God’s country,” and if something should happen to them where competent medical personnel couldn’t get to them in time, well … they died living the life they wanted to lead. I think that’s the mindset of the permanent retirees in those towns.
