"Best" age of kids for a parent to go through medical school/residency?

[bioXposome]

Hi!

Not sure which sub-forum this topic might be most effective and I'm curious to learn from others what is believed to be the 'best' age(s) of a kid for a parent to pursue medical school/residency?

I've felt strongly to be there for my two kids as they grow up, attend their extracurricular activities, and just provide guidance; however, I wonder which age range (children vs teenagers) would be most negatively impacted by me going through the medical school/residency journey? It sounds like medical school itself could be treated as a full-time job (e.g., 8am - 5pm) where one could have time with their kids each day, but what about residency?

I'm asking these questions as I'm considering to pursue such a journey and my timeframe to doing so is flexible at the moment (i.e., I could miss out on my kids' childhoods or teenage years to medical residency). My timeframe is flexible as I'm planning to build a larger nest egg to fund the journey with my family and to get meaningful amount of patient care experience. My aspiration is to go into primary care/prevention specialty.

I know there are multiple factors that go into what the 'best' age could be and I'm just curious to know if others have thought about this or gone through the journey with kids and how it turned out. Would be great to hear from different perspectives.

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[Nontrad_FL_LGBT]

Do it while your kids are young. More stress for you but they won't really remember it.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Ideally, one where your children are surrounded by family members or trusted friends who can share the burden of childcare.

 

[purpledoc1]

Hi!

Not sure which sub-forum this topic might be most effective and I'm curious to learn from others what is believed to be the 'best' age(s) of a kid for a parent to pursue medical school/residency?

I've felt strongly to be there for my two kids as they grow up, attend their extracurricular activities, and just provide guidance; however, I wonder which age range (children vs teenagers) would be most negatively impacted by me going through the medical school/residency journey? It sounds like medical school itself could be treated as a full-time job (e.g., 8am - 5pm) where one could have time with their kids each day, but what about residency?

I'm asking these questions as I'm considering to pursue such a journey and my timeframe to doing so is flexible at the moment (i.e., I could miss out on my kids' childhoods or teenage years to medical residency). My timeframe is flexible as I'm planning to build a larger nest egg to fund the journey with my family and to get meaningful amount of patient care experience. My aspiration is to go into primary care/prevention specialty.

I know there are multiple factors that go into what the 'best' age could be and I'm just curious to know if others have thought about this or gone through the journey with kids and how it turned out. Would be great to hear from different perspectives.

Residency is a special case. If lifestyle is super important to you, pick something like derm or private practice IM so that you can work ~8-5.

Residency will require a lot of sacrifices, like medicine in general. The best thing that you can do is get a nanny, a trusted babysitter, family member, or good friend to watch your kids for you. There's no way that you can cut corners and make it out in one piece. Some of it depends on the specialty; some of it depends on the program, and some of it depends on who you work with, but you will need to make a significant time commitment. It's not just a stereotype for surgery. If you can't do this, then medicine really isn't for you.

The easy answer to your question is that you shouldn't try to plan medicine around your family. Medicine is a calling. Medical schools pick people who put their career before their family except in the case of an emergency--this is a thing. There are some gray areas, but this is the conventional wisdom.

 

[petomed]

I’m in year 3 of med school right now with two kiddos under 5. The first two years were pretty regular from a time commitment standpoint and you get out of it pretty directly what you put into it. That’s mostly the same in years 3 and 4 but you do lose a good bit of schedule control. It will depend on your school how flexible they are with accommodating your parenting duties. For example, mine is granting me night shifts and weekends off and putting those hours during the week in order to close a childcare gap that we would otherwise have. Not all programs will do that. And it certainly comes at the expense of networking, perhaps a letter of recommendation or two, and earning top marks on preceptor evaluations. But hey, can’t have it all and that’s fair.

As others have said, this flexibility disappears once you become an employee in residency. For me, that means extensive planning to ensure my spouse has complete job flexibility during those years. Whereas for now, I can let the school know one of my littles was sent home sick and get the day off without direct/meaningful consequence.

The central theme here, as others have already said, is to ensure you have child care coverage. This way you can avoid sacrificing letters of recommendation, exam/board scores, hands on learning experiences, avoid moving exam dates, etc. I’ve had to forego every one of those at some point so far because my spouse is 100% not a stay at home partner. I have peers in my class who had a stay at home spouse, or who had rock solid family at beckons call and they were able to be just like any other student academically.

So, I’d say pick the time in your life when you have the most family support. If that means beginning school right now, do it. If that means holding off till you can put together an application that gets you into the medical school located where you have the most family support, do that.

But I’ll say this. Don’t sacrifice your family. Doing medical school with a family is hard for sure. But you get to come home every single day with your kiddos running to great you. 90% of your peers have nothing on that level to come home to after their pharm exam tore them a new one. Medicine can chew you up and spit you back out. But always keep your family #1 and you can’t lose. I can’t imagine having done this without them.

 

[Gonio5]

There is no good time. Some try to do residency before having children then race against infertility.

 

[HopefulPilot]

The process is not made for people with kids. You're looking at 7-8 years of a very inflexible schedule and often not 8-5 in medical school or residency.