Talk about my child during interviews?

[kortneeluv]

Should I talk about my daughter during interviews? I was not involved with a lot of extracurriculars during the first two years of med school because I had my daughter during first year. I mainly focused on studying and my family and my board scores/class rank reflect this. I want programs to know I am very serious about my job and being the best physician possible, but that I am dedicated to my family. How should I approach this during interviews?? Thanks for your input!!

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[organdonor]

Per ACGME rules, programs can't ask you about your family. Therefore questions such as "are you married," "Do you have any children," or "are you pregnant" are off limits.

That being said, they still get asked quite frequently. Some of that is because programs are ignorant of the rules, or purposely break them, but I think it happens more commonly due to a truly innocent slip. Hell, if I met someone for the first time and struck up a conversation with them two of those questions would be the first things I'd ask. It's just natural in the flow of small talk between interviews to ask those kinds of questions.

Even with the above knowledge, I wanted every program I interviewed at to be 100% clear that I am married and have kids. I put "spending time with husband and infant son" on my ERAS application. If that makes me not a good fit for a program, I'd rather go elsewhere. If it took me off their list then I consider that saving everybody some time and frustration.

If you wanted to make programs aware but you didn't have something like that on ERAS, don't worry. You'll have opportunities on interview day to make it apparent.

You will get some form of "tell me about yourself" or "what do you do for fun" and just run through a few practice answers where you bring up your family. When you get asked "what questions do you have for me" you could also ask if any current residents have children, are married, are pregnant, took family leave, etc which could be a natural segway into your own personal situation.

 

[vomidate121]

Did you get the impression from any PD's that they viewed you having a family as a negative thing?

 

[Law2Doc]

Just bear in mind that stories, pictures etc of other people's kids are generally not as interesting to unrelated people. Keep it brief.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Did you get the impression from any PD's that they viewed you having a family as a negative thing?

I suspect this is somewhat field dependent although I would guess very few PDs would hold you having a kid against you. Actually having a kid might be favorable because it might make you less likely to have a kid during training, which creates mores disruptions to the schedule (even though tons and tons of people have kids during residency).

 

[organdonor]

Did you get the impression from any PD's that they viewed you having a family as a negative thing?

I personally did not. Highly specialty and program specific. I'm in Family Medicine so I would be willing to bet that in general FM programs are going to be more receptive to a family than surgery prelim for instance.

And faculty may not care as much about the following, but if all the residents at a place are single and you are married with children you are going to feel left out. non parents just can't understand that no, I can't go play sand volleyball with 15 minutes notice on a weeknight. All the residents going on a weekend trip thats awesome! O wait no its not because my two year old has a fever and the babysitter won't take him! On the other hand it may get a little boring if everyone is married. A little bit of both is good.

Of course there were a couple programs that I never heard back from so you never know what their reasoning was. My hair in my ERAS picture, cosmic radiation deleted my app, my family, who knows!

 

[jakeislove]

Just bear in mind that stories, pictures etc of other people's kids are generally not as interesting to unrelated people. Keep it brief.

That's a very nice way to put it.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

As @organdonor said, we can't ask--but if you bring it up (or have mentioned it in your PS or Hobbies section, etc.) it is fair game! (And most of your interviewers will breathe a huge sigh of relief that they can talk to you like a normal person and get to know you!)