Manhattan, New York

New York City, the largest city in the United States, is made up of five boroughs: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island. It is the home of the United Nations and a major center of global finance, communications, and business. New York City is spectacular for so many reasons: its high residential density; its extraordinarily diverse population; its forest of hundreds of skyscrapers; its thriving central business district; its extensive public transportation system; and its more than 400 distinct neighborhoods. The city's concert houses, museums, galleries, and theaters constitute an ensemble of cultural richness rivaled by few cities. In 2000, the population of the city of New York was 8,008,278; the population of the metropolitan region was 18,323,002.

New York has a temperate climate with annual precipitation of 47 inches per year. The city is not immune to an occasional dump of snow in the winter. New York City is at about the same latitude as Naples, Italy, but the weather isn't quite the same: the temperature averages at 28F (-2C) in January and 76F (24C) in July, with the Atlantic Ocean helping to moderate weather extremes in the city.

Those who like museums and the performing arts will be in seventh heaven in New York. The city contains famous museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of the Moving Image, the Guggenheim, the American Museum of Natural History, and – one of my favorites – the Cloisters! And then there's Broadway (and Off Broadway, and Off Off Broadway), where you can enjoy any type of theatrical genre imaginable. Catch a performance at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, with its 12 resident companies, including the New York City Ballet, the New York Philharmonic, and the New York City Opera.

And while the sports enthusiast may cringe at such a cornucopia of artistic opportunities, they also very well know they'll be quite happy, as they'll have the New York Yankees, the New York Mets, the New York Rangers, New York Islanders (Uniondale), the New York Knicks, and New York Jets.

Don't even get me started on the shopping opportunities in New York City!

For articles on healthcare professionals in New York, see A Double Life, The Best of Both Worlds, Confronting Mental Illness Around the Globe, The New AJN.

See our 16 Jobs in Manhattan, New York