Need Time

[pianola]

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I am halfway through my second year of residency. I want to do a heme onc fellowship.

I want to take a year off before I do fellowship - I actually don't even care what it is. I'll do research, a master's, hospitalist, outpatient, trip to Africa, I don't even care what. I'll pick up garbage if I have to. I love medicine, both internal and heme onc, but I am too overwhelmed to apply in 6 months - I'm scared to spend all that time and money interviewing only to be rejected.

Gutonc et al keeps saying there is no good way to take a year off - only bad ways and worse ways.

I think this is where the glass ceiling hits. I want to get married and have a baby, but I just can't imagine doing it all.

What do I have to do to get more time?

 

[gutonc]

I'm not going to argue that there's no glass ceiling (because there certainly is, although it's a lot less dramatic in medicine than a lot of other careers), but I think you're being overly dramatic here. You want to get married? Go for it. I assume you've got somebody lined up. If not, you've got a lot of work to do first. Lots of people get married during residency...many of them actually find, date and marry somebody during residency (I can think of about 30 people I know who did so) and I can't think of anybody I know who was as desperate to do so as you seem to be who let residency alone stop them.

Now, on to the baby making. With the exception of the one who was gay and un-partnered and one other, every single female fellow on 2 years either side of me during fellowship (the number is 9 if you must know) had at least 1 baby during fellowship. 2 had 2, one had 3. All graduated on time. Hell, I have one friend who was a single PCCM fellow, had IVF, had a 28 week preemie who spent 6 months in the NICU and herself spent 2w in the hospital after post-partum hemorrhage complications and still graduated on time. First year of hem/onc fellowship is like being an intern again (or worse in some cases), but beyond that it's like being an M4 only getting paid $60K+ for the privilege.

If you need to take time off before fellowship for psychological or other reasons, that's fine. You're correct that there's no "right" way to do this, only not good and bad options. But it's not going to completely ruin an otherwise good application to fellowship. And don't pretend that marriage and child-bearing are completely incompatible with completing your career goals on a reasonable timeline. Decide what matters most to you and do it. Let the rest of the chips fall where they may.

 

[johndoe3344]

Gutonc et al keeps saying there is no good way to take a year off - only bad ways and worse ways.

What's so bad about doing a hospitalist year or something like that? At my institution it seems like there are 20% or so of people who end up doing that every year typically.

What are the "bad" and "worse" ways?

 

[IM2GI]

I and many of my classmates took a year off between residency and fellowship. I think it is very common and I am a better fellow because of it. I had a year of an attending lifestyle and salary, as well as another year of general internal medicine. I felt no stigma or negativity because of it on the interview trail.

If you want to take a year, take a year.

 

[Gastrapathy]

If you are taking a year to have a kid, have the kid halfway thru your third year of residency. That way you're around when the kid starts to be more than a pure parasite who only smiles when he poops.

Be a hospitalist so when you are off, you're really off. Don't have #2 until you are in the lab.