Asking for maternity leave before starting residency....

[KAM25]

Hello SDN community,

I was hoping people would share some experiences here. I am due to deliver at the end of may. I matched in internal med in another state. So i will be moving interstate once I have the baby as well. The program I matched at starts their inten year in the last week of june with orientation week before that. I'm sure I will have to do the orientation week on time but can I ask for 2 weeks off as maternity leave atleast till my baby is 4-6 weeks and my body can heal. And also, who do I ask, the PD or PC? Anyone have similar experiences....Please shed some light. I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

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[Raryn]

Hello SDN community,

I was hoping people would share some experiences here. I am due to deliver at the end of may. I matched in internal med in another state. So i will be moving interstate once I have the baby as well. The program I matched at starts their inten year in the last week of june with orientation week before that. I'm sure I will have to do the orientation week on time but can I ask for 2 weeks off as maternity leave atleast till my baby is 4-6 weeks and my body can heal. And also, who do I ask, the PD or PC? Anyone have similar experiences....Please shed some light. I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

Contact your program today and let them know about your pregnancy/due date. You can email your PD, PC, chief residents, or any combination thereof. The sooner the better, because schedules are being made *now*.

Depending on your programs policies, the answer you get may be different. You may or may not be able to get paid maternity leave, there's no legal obligation on the program to do so but a lot of universities have policies endorsing it. You don't qualify for FMLA in your first year at the institution. You might be able to take vacation immediately after orientation (my program allowed it), though that would use up vacation from the remainder of the year. OTOH, some programs don't allow vacation in June/July because the first month is set up in some kind of introductory rotations where you change things up every 1-2 weeks.

There's really no way for us to know if you can get time off, whether this will count towards your vacation, whether you will be paid for the time off, or any other of a million questions. Just contact your program and ask.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Agreed. In general, you can't take "standard" maternity leave after orientation. Most maternity leaves are under your disability policy. I think that's really crazy, but it's how the world works. But you can't come to "work orientation" for a week, and then claim you're now "disabled" by something that happened beforehand.

You can't start on maternity leave (i.e. pre orientation). You need to get hired before you can go on leave.

You might be able to take an FMLA like leave. As mentioned, your program isn't legally required to give it to you, but many big employers offer FMLA immediately (rather than after a year). It would be unpaid.

Or there's vacation, as mentioned.

or you might be able to start late. Fellows usually get oriented in July, that would give you a few more weeks. But that's up to them.

 

[KAM25]

Contact your program today and let them know about your pregnancy/due date. You can email your PD, PC, chief residents, or any combination thereof. The sooner the better, because schedules are being made *now*.

Depending on your programs policies, the answer you get may be different. You may or may not be able to get paid maternity leave, there's no legal obligation on the program to do so but a lot of universities have policies endorsing it. You don't qualify for FMLA in your first year at the institution. You might be able to take vacation immediately after orientation (my program allowed it), though that would use up vacation from the remainder of the year. OTOH, some programs don't allow vacation in June/July because the first month is set up in some kind of introductory rotations where you change things up every 1-2 weeks.

There's really no way for us to know if you can get time off, whether this will count towards your vacation, whether you will be paid for the time off, or any other of a million questions. Just contact your program and ask.

Thank you so much for your input..

 

[KAM25]

Agreed. In general, you can't take "standard" maternity leave after orientation. Most maternity leaves are under your disability policy. I think that's really crazy, but it's how the world works. But you can't come to "work orientation" for a week, and then claim you're now "disabled" by something that happened beforehand.

You can't start on maternity leave (i.e. pre orientation). You need to get hired before you can go on leave.

You might be able to take an FMLA like leave. As mentioned, your program isn't legally required to give it to you, but many big employers offer FMLA immediately (rather than after a year). It would be unpaid.

Or there's vacation, as mentioned.

or you might be able to start late. Fellows usually get oriented in July, that would give you a few more weeks. But that's up to them.

Thank you so much..I really appreciate it.