for female residents

we've had a few babies pop out from our colleagues...they really just have to suck it up. i don't know how they do it. they usually work until they day they deliver (are usually induced, so as not to disrupt the call schedule too much - and no, i'm not kidding). other option is to take a year off for research and have the kid then. talk to the female attendings when you do your rotation.

btw, our obgyn residents? 2 weeks off.
surgery? 6-8 weeks off.

Blade28 said:

The female residents here, with only one exception, all had their pregnancies/babies during lab years.

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That's been the case at my institution until lately. There have been several pregnancies among clinical residents lately. It's just tough, but people do it.

As for advice
1) go to an Assn of Women Surgeons meeting
2) strongly consider research time
3) Remember that between sick leave and FMLA, you can take (within reason) as much maternity leave as you want. Might extend your training, but they can't fire you.

Good points Pilot.

To clarify- this is per a female attending who had a baby during residency:

You technically can miss up to four weeks per year of residency and finish on time. This is per some official body, I don't know if it's the RRC or ABS exactly. So...let's say you get 3 weeks of vacation per year. Essentially you have an extra five weeks, one week per year, that you could miss if you broke your leg, had a baby, etc...That's where the extra time comes in for maternity leave.

I am new to this website. I now have a new addiction, besides sleep. This website is great, and MASSIVELY entertaining.

Anyway, to the original question. having a baby during residency is do-able. The ease with which it is incorporated into the residency as a whole is determined by the culture of your program. I am in a university affiliated, community program. Tradiationally this program has about 75% married residents and half of them have kids. I had a baby in August of my second year. She was not planned (unplanned but not unwelcomed). My program director and the rest of the residents simply took it in stride. The year I had my baby, there were 10 babies delivered in my program (out of 40 residents), 2 of which were female residents! Right now, we have one female resident pregnant, and one who is trying. Last year we had 5 female residents pregnant at once.

Again, the culture of my program is such that this is not a big deal. Everyone understood that I was pregnant or had a brand new baby. I was able to get time off for doctor's visits for myself and her routine baby checks. I nursed her until she was 6 months old, which meant pumping at work. Most people understood. One time, though, one of the guys walked into the call room while I was pumping. At first he didn't realize what was goind on (as I had everything covered with a towel). Then his eyes got real big and his face went pale and he RAN out of the room!!

I was on trauma until 2 weeks before I delivered. I simply waddled everywhere, at a little slower pace than usual. I don't ever remember having to break scrub to pee. I guess you just ignore it when you are really concentrating. I was lucky that I didn't have morning sickness, but I nearly passed out once because I was too hot. I just broke scrub, sat down, and then went to get some juice. In my case, they built in a research rotation, so that technically I didn't lose a lot of time. I had to use all of my vacation time to cover maternity leave that year, which sucked.

As far as losing time. According to my program director, you can have one 46 week year in your first 2 years, and one 46 week year in your last three years, without having to make up time.

No one here cares. Only one male resident has every said anything about it causing him problems. My reply to him was that, its ok for his wife to have a baby at any time during HIS residency. So, as my husband's wife, why shouldn't I be able to have a baby, too?

DoctorMunchkin said:

My reply to him was that, its ok for his wife to have a baby at any time during HIS residency. So, as my husband's wife, why shouldn't I be able to have a baby, too?

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Because his wife is not affecting the work of the residency, no?

DoctorMunchkin said:

My reply to him was that, its ok for his wife to have a baby at any time during HIS residency. So, as my husband's wife, why shouldn't I be able to have a baby, too?

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Well, that's just horrible logic.....


Anyway, my program seems to be pretty fertile as well, although only one of the female residents has children. The residents' wives, on the other hand, are the most fertile beings on earth.

Also, I think the OBGYN residents here have some sort of pregnancy requirement in order to graduate, as I don't think I've ever seen one that's not knocked up.

I guess there are only so many things to do in Wichita......

gasnewby said:

Good points Pilot.

To clarify- this is per a female attending who had a baby during residency:

You technically can miss up to four weeks per year of residency and finish on time. This is per some official body, I don't know if it's the RRC or ABS exactly. So...let's say you get 3 weeks of vacation per year. Essentially you have an extra five weeks, one week per year, that you could miss if you broke your leg, had a baby, etc...That's where the extra time comes in for maternity leave.

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ACGME requires a certain number of weeks to graduate. The link here is the updated program requirements starting Jan 2008: http://www.acgme.org/acWebsite/downloads/RRC_progReq/440generalsurgery01012008.pdf

Essentially, you have to have 54 weeks of clinical surgery during your 5 year residency; so in effect, you can almost miss 6 months of residency over the 5 years. But speaking from experience, I took FMLA during residency and was allowed to graduate on time by the ACGME and ACS (which had to give approval as well as I recall). So more time is available but has to be approved outside of your PD doing so.

My program was 50 % female but I don't know any female residents who had children during their clinical years, all did so during time in the lab.

My (male resident) 2 cents -

If you want to have a baby in residency - have a baby.

I hear a lot of moaning from residents about this, but it is a heck of a lot easier to work out the call schedule among 20 residents than 2 attendings in private practice.

We sacrifice so much of the rest of our lives for our careers it is insane to think that your fellow residents "feelings" should control your fertility, too.

We all have lazy residents that we work with, and i would easily rather take call for a hard working female resident on maternity leave than take up the slack for a lazy male resident.

As far as extending your residency - who cares? The other option is waiting until you are in practice, than not only loosing pay for the 3 months you're out on FMLA, but also having to come up with your portion of the overhead while you are out. Personally, if I were female, I'd rather have the kid during a time when I didn't have to worry about supporting my nurse and office staff in my absence (it's not like you're going to lay them off during your absence).

The real issue, however, is child care once the child is born. Make sure you can afford your nanny when the time comes or have a stay at home father.

My reply to him was that, its ok for his wife to have a baby at any time during HIS residency. So, as my husband's wife, why shouldn't I be able to have a baby, too?
Well, that's just horrible logic.....


I never said the logic was good! Give me credit, I usually just say because I'm the mom and I said so. That usually ends all arguments.

I never screwed up the call schedule becuase there was a enough time to build in a research rotation. It wasn't nearly as easy when we had 3 male residents each break a leg within 3 weeks of each other! Then one of those guys knocked his wife up while his leg was still in a cast!! Now that's a real surgeon!!

ditto leforte

Went to a session at ASC about gender, and family in a surgical career. A few women talked about having children while in residency. The jist of it was that many programs didn't know how to handle it several years ago. Since women make up about 50% of most med school classes most places have experience now. In a long residency like surgery missing 6-8wks isn't a concern. I have even heard of someone be advanced a year. Urban legand? The women in the pannel said they felt it helped to be super organized. ie adjust the schedule so that you have easier blocks later in your pregnancy when possible. they also recommended that you find out what your programs policy is re amount of time, and the loss of vacation, ect. Most PD seemed to recognize that women between 25-35 wont have much time after residency to start a family. Best wishes

I would think, in a large program also with many PAs, taking time off for preg should not be a problem.

It would be a big problem in smaller programs with only 3-4 residents/yr. I know in our program, if I need to take off 1 day, it becomes a nightmare trying to find coverage.

Leforte said:

My (male resident) 2 cents -

If you want to have a baby in residency - have a baby.

I hear a lot of moaning from residents about this, but it is a heck of a lot easier to work out the call schedule among 20 residents than 2 attendings in private practice.

We sacrifice so much of the rest of our lives for our careers it is insane to think that your fellow residents "feelings" should control your fertility, too.

We all have lazy residents that we work with, and i would easily rather take call for a hard working female resident on maternity leave than take up the slack for a lazy male resident.

As far as extending your residency - who cares? The other option is waiting until you are in practice, than not only loosing pay for the 3 months you're out on FMLA, but also having to come up with your portion of the overhead while you are out. Personally, if I were female, I'd rather have the kid during a time when I didn't have to worry about supporting my nurse and office staff in my absence (it's not like you're going to lay them off during your absence).

The real issue, however, is child care once the child is born. Make sure you can afford your nanny when the time comes or have a stay at home father.

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Totally agree (though am admittedly male)

PS: Am in a large, very "fertile" program, and though we seem to be growing babies in the lab, several clinical residents (from 2nd year to chief) have had children, and I don't think it has really "hurt" the program in anyway. And they have or will graduate on time.

DoctorMunchkin said:

I never said the logic was good! Give me credit, I usually just say because I'm the mom and I said so. That usually ends all arguments.

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Perhaps they recognize that it is no point in arguing with someone so self-centered, correct?

Hello,

Realize that you are going to have to deal with resent, frustrations, etc, but keep a thick skin and you'll be fine. There is no perfect time to have/ raise a family, and if surgery and family is what you want, figure a way to work hard and plan it out.

I'm in my last year of residency and though I did not want/ choose to have children during residency, some of my colleagues did and it can be worked out. Though (no doubt) I don't particularly want to take extra call, I have (and would) be supportive if an otherwise hard working person in the program (male or female, for that matter) needed to do so.

As for morning sickness, maybe you'll get lucky? If not, you'd be amazed what you can learn to fend off during residency; plus, there is always zofran.

Regarding how long you take off @ delivery; you may be able to do several weeks though I know of a few people who were back within 2-4 weeks.

I'd check into the following:

- What exactly does maternity leave entail at your program? Can you still keep any of your vacation weeks if you choose to take it and at what point (this may differ should you leave during your 1st versus your 4th year)

- Do you have the support of the father/ family? If not (or not enough time) look into a nanny. Hard to find day care that can take a child when you get called in at 3AM.

- Be forthcoming as soon as you can with your PD. If you're at a larger program, it may not be that big of a deal to rearrange schedules so that no one takes a lot of the brunt when you need to take leave.

Good luck. Some of the basics of surgical residency mean that you work hard to figure things out- if this is what you want, I'd apply it to this situation as well.

beasleys said:

Perhaps they recognize that it is no point in arguing with someone so self-centered, correct?

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Ummm... That was meant to be a joke. You know how moms don't want to argue with their children, so they just say because I said so. And the last bit, about stopping all arguments is said tongue in cheek. Because anyone who is a parent or has been a child knows that the whole "because I said so line" BEGINS a whole list of wails and moans and arguments. Sorry, perhaps I should have made the sarcasm a little more clear.

Or did you mean that a female that decides to have a baby during residency is being self-centered? I have heard that there are places that will not rank married females high on their list simply because the might become pregnany during residency. And these are not small programs, but places that have 6-8 residents per class.

DoctorMunchkin said:

Ummm... That was meant to be a joke. You know how moms don't want to argue with their children, so they just say because I said so. And the last bit, about stopping all arguments is said tongue in cheek. Because anyone who is a parent or has been a child knows that the whole "because I said so line" BEGINS a whole list of wails and moans and arguments. Sorry, perhaps I should have made the sarcasm a little more clear.

Or did you mean that a female that decides to have a baby during residency is being self-centered? I have heard that there are places that will not rank married females high on their list simply because the might become pregnany during residency. And these are not small programs, but places that have 6-8 residents per class.

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I think that does still happen, especially since most females that interviewed for surgery have a story about the programs asking them somewhat illegal questions regarding their family plans.

I think it's very reasonable to have a baby during residency, and family should be a priority, I just think that surgery residency is not as accomodating for something like this as OBGYN or IM would be. Most female residents, as you know at this point having done it, have to work doubly-hard to fit in time to pop out a couple babies......