Maternity leave

[feb14]

Hello,
I am pregnant, trying to know how to manage my maternity leave and how many days I can get, i was surprised that I actually do not get any time other than my vacation time+ the allocated sick days / year! The residency administrator told me that any extra time that I need to take will be unpaid and I will have to make it up after my third year in order to graduate! It really scared me, is this true for all other programs?

Appreciate your input 🙂

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[BoardingDoc]

Hello,
I am pregnant, trying to know how to manage my maternity leave and how many days I can get, i was surprised that I actually do not get any time other than my vacation time+ the allocated sick days / year! The residency administrator told me that any extra time that I need to take will be unpaid and I will have to make it up after my third year in order to graduate! It really scared me, is this true for all other programs?

Appreciate your input 🙂

This is true. The ACGME only allows 4 weeks off per academic year, any more time off and it must be made up in order to have successfully completed that year. This is true for all programs.

EDIT: as a couple of people have pointed out, this is apparently a restriction based on individual specialty boards, not the ACGME. 4 weeks seems to be frequently quoted, but evidently it doesn't apply to all specialties such as psych (per @backrow below)

 

[feb14]

Thank you for your reply. I hope this will be enough for me, so scared

 

[GoSpursGo]

Hello,
I am pregnant, trying to know how to manage my maternity leave and how many days I can get, i was surprised that I actually do not get any time other than my vacation time+ the allocated sick days / year! The residency administrator told me that any extra time that I need to take will be unpaid and I will have to make it up after my third year in order to graduate! It really scared me, is this true for all other programs?

Appreciate your input 🙂

This is correct. It sucks and isn't really fair, but time working=time training. The maximum amount of training is crammed into 3 years of training, and if you miss more than 12 weeks during that time the ACGME doesn't think you have enough experience to practice independently and sit for your boards.

Some of my co-residents managed this by forgoing vacation days in intern year and saving them for 2nd or 3rd year when they knew they would need maternity leave (doesn't sound like this would work if you are currently pregnant, though you could ask if you could use some of your 2nd year vacation days... in practice, you might take extra unpaid time off, and then when it comes time to schedule 2nd and 3rd year you would say you would like to spend your vacation time paying off the time you need to complete residency). Also, you could consider following your vacation/maternity leave with an elective which doesn't actually require to you go to the hospital (ie research, some other independent study... at our institution, you didn't have to be physically present for radiology after the first day orientation)--you would need to do some work during that time but at least you could be at home. Or if you're not planning on subspecializing (ie not moving for fellowship immediately after the end of residency) and can afford a period where you aren't being paid, you can take extra time off via FMLA and just pay that time back after the end of 3rd year.

 

[deleted480308]

My program allows for scheduling outpatient months (the only time we can use our weeks of vacation) backed up against an independent research month (have some work to do but paid from home) and then filling in gaps with sick/personal days......gets our ladies 8wks before fmla and graduation stays on track

 

[mcl]

Point of clarification--it's generally the specialty Boards that dictate how much time can be missed without having to make up time, and institutions that determine parental leave policies. My institution never let residents bank time, but did allow moms "borrow" leave from the future if she wasn't in the final year of residency. It's been a relatively new phenomenon to have dads requesting multiple weeks of parental leave. That ended about 3 years ago, although now after PGY1 residents can bank a week of sick leave to make six weeks of paid leave. FMLA will secure your job for 12 weeks, but it does not mandate the time off be paid. You might look into short term disability insurance to provide some income if you don't have enough leave to cover the time you plan to be out.

 

[NITRAS]

I doubt you'll be able to get short term disability policy while you are pregnant. Your employer either has one, or they don't (and it doesn't sound like they do.

Save up as much cash as you can, get on a budget now. Babies are awesome, congratulations. It is going to be OK.

 

[backrow]

This is true. The ACGME only allows 4 weeks off per academic year, any more time off and it must be made up in order to have successfully completed that year. This is true for all programs.

This is the second time I have seen this said recently and it is completely wrong.

The ACGME has no say on how many weeks off one can have, this is the purview of the Specialty Board. Some are more strict than others, for example some specialties (I believe psych is one) has no limit on the amount of time one can be “away from the program” to sit for Boards. General surgery has different rules for different years, some specialties allow leave to be rolled over, some don’t.

Look at your particular Specialty Board qualifying requirements for details on this, but realize those are Maximums and your program or institution may have more strict guidelines.


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[PTPoeny]

There are two completely separate issues that you are asking about. With regards to paid maternity leave both my residency and fellowship institutions provided 6 weeks of paid maternity leave completely separate from vacation and sick days, so no, the lack of paid maternity leave is not universal. A quick google search suggests that no paid maternity leave at all is actually a bit unusual. I think ACGMEs only rule on the topic is that you have to be given each programs parental leave policies at your interview.

With regards to paying time back this is specialty and program specific. My specialty board (Peds) requires the successful completion of 33 out of 36 months of clinical training to complete a residency or fellowship. My residency was calendar month based and we were allowed to take vacation during certain outpatient elective or shift based months but we still obviously got credit for the month. This meant that we could take 3 months of maternity leave (or god forbid develop medical problems that left someone temporarily unable to work or take time off after the death of a parent/child/spouse) without making anything up at the end. Only 6 weeks was paid so many women chose not to take the full time but it was there. My residency program also allowed us to bank vacation time from year to year which some people used as "extra" paid time off. My residency program also would allow new parents to schedule independent study and research rotations for after the birth of a child and while they have strict output requirements for those rotations, residents would usually complete them ahead of time to allow for an extra month of no clinical duties -residents were still required to attend all educational sessions, so the month wasn't completely off like true leave.

My fellowship program, under the same ABP guidelines, interprets this differently and counts the 4 weeks of vacation each year as a month off from clinical training and therefore any time taken off at all in addition to vacation is time that has to be made up at the end of training. In addition we aren't allowed to bank any vacation at all from year to year. So, it isn't even dependent only on your specialty board, it is dependent on how your program interprets your specialty board rules.

 

[mvenus929]

My residency program allowed for 4 weeks of FMLA time, and then you could use two of your vacations to get to a total of 6 weeks. Anything more than that was unpaid and had to be made up at the end of residency. We usually were able to get the resident back on some sort of elective that was light--research or a rotation she only had to be at for the mornings or whatnot.

The guys we had more issues with because our institution didn't allow for any paternal leave, so we had to figure out what was reasonable time away for non-medical things. We gave most of the guys a week (plus any vacation they wanted to use provided they were on an outpatient block when the baby was born).

 

[feb14]

Thank you for all your replies.. it is frustrating that my program turned out to be very strict.. i wish I could “ borrow” day from the future☹️i never used any of my sick leaves in my first year or CME days, but i dont think that will be considered.
Im just hpoing i can manage without the need for a longer time off