Pediatricians

[LovingLifeDoc]

I'm new to this Website. Fourth year planning on applying to Pediatrics. I'm a Female in her mid-30's who's always loved Pediatrics. Was Struggling between a couple different fields and decided that I loved the energy and atmosphere of Pediatric hospitals, the medicine, and kids (most of all)
Question is: I am still single and worse case scenario: due to my age might not be able to have children down the road.
I would love to work in the Private Practice Setting (not forseeing fellowship due to the long road ahead) How do Parents react to Childless Pediatricans? Do you know of any? In terms of their happiness, how satisfied are they?
Thanks!

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[phrygian]

Having kids does really help identify with parents concerns, however, it is not an absolute. I do know a few that do not have kids. As a father, the thing I cared about when choosing a pediatrician for our kids (excluding competence) was that they listened to us and that they interacted with the kids well. Our current pediatrician is great and he has no children, but he is great with the kids and he listens to our concerns. There were plenty of others that we tried who had children but they didn't have the other qualities.

 

[oldbearprofessor]

I'm new to this Website. Fourth year planning on applying to Pediatrics. I'm a Female in her mid-30's who's always loved Pediatrics. Was Struggling between a couple different fields and decided that I loved the energy and atmosphere of Pediatric hospitals, the medicine, and kids (most of all)
Question is: I am still single and worse case scenario: due to my age might not be able to have children down the road.
I would love to work in the Private Practice Setting (not forseeing fellowship due to the long road ahead) How do Parents react to Childless Pediatricans? Do you know of any? In terms of their happiness, how satisfied are they?
Thanks!

First of all, welcome to SDN and hope you have a good application cycle. In terms of private practice, there are lots of childless general pediatricians, both male and female. Sure, it is nice to have been there, but it really isn't a major issue.

Consider however, that you are not too old to do a fellowship if you decide you'd rather be a specialist. Starting private practice general pediatrics at 38 is not so different that starting being an attending in a pediatric specialty you want to be part of when you are 41. Decide based on what you want to do, not the calendar, even if you have loans, etc. There are boatloads of new specialty attendings at about age 40 and they have many years of practice ahead of them. We need pedi specialists in many fields.

Regards

OBP

 

[dtn3t]

First of all, welcome to SDN and hope you have a good application cycle. In terms of private practice, there are lots of childless general pediatricians, both male and female. Sure, it is nice to have been there, but it really isn't a major issue.

Consider however, that you are not too old to do a fellowship if you decide you'd rather be a specialist. Starting private practice general pediatrics at 38 is not so different that starting being an attending in a pediatric specialty you want to be part of when you are 41. Decide based on what you want to do, not the calendar, even if you have loans, etc. There are boatloads of new specialty attendings at about age 40 and they have many years of practice ahead of them. We need pedi specialists in many fields.

Regards

OBP

Agree with all the above. I am probably one of the few male, childless pediatricians out there and I haven't had any issues. Most of the time, the issue of children doesn't even come up.

And totally agree with the great OBP. You'll never too old for fellowship, and you might be changing your tune once you get into the day to day routine of gen peds. You may love it, you may not. It's kind of like med school, you'll keep changing your mind about what you like. Just keep an open mind throughout. All through residency I convinced myself that all I wanted to be was a general pediatrician. While I do love gen peds, I wish that I wasn't so closed minded at not really looking at the subspecialities as a profession rather than a learning opportunity.