Pregnant in Residency?
Started by Acc1989
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It's doable in the sense that if you get pregnant you will do it. Your program may or not be happy and you may or may not need to graduate late depending on how long you are off but it's doable
Lots of people, including me, have had babies during residency. Fertility treatments during residency suck an extra amount and could be complicated depending on what service you are on and where the office is located relative to your rotations. You may want to let somebody in your program know... Otherwise it gets awkward when your chief resident walks in on you giving yourself injections in the resident room. At least for me the appointments were short but getting to them and waiting can take up a lot of time and you will not have much notice if you need to get coverage or move your own patients. The emotional part sucks too working with pregnant women and newborns. Make sure you have support to deal with that.
Generally the first six months of intern year is a really bad time to have a baby. Depending on your program second year might be much easier or not really much different than the second half of intern year. The end of fourth year is an awesome time to have a baby. Going into family medicine I wouldn't think they would mind you interviewing pregnant. I had several friends interview for Peds residency pregnant and they still got into their top programs. Your program would much rather you have a baby before you start than after! You will not get maternity leave if you have a baby before you start no matter how close your baby was born to the start time though. I worked with one resident who started orientation two weeks after her baby was born.
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Generally the first six months of intern year is a really bad time to have a baby. Depending on your program second year might be much easier or not really much different than the second half of intern year. The end of fourth year is an awesome time to have a baby. Going into family medicine I wouldn't think they would mind you interviewing pregnant. I had several friends interview for Peds residency pregnant and they still got into their top programs. Your program would much rather you have a baby before you start than after! You will not get maternity leave if you have a baby before you start no matter how close your baby was born to the start time though. I worked with one resident who started orientation two weeks after her baby was born.
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All good thoughts. Also consider that, depending on the program, you will have the least amount of accrued leave during intern year. Some programs will allow you to bank a week of vacation, or have a separate sick-leave pool that you can use for paid parental leave. FMLA protects your position, but it does not guarantee that the time off is paid.
FMLA only goes into effect after you have been working somewhere for a year. So FMLA is not relevant during intern year. Having said that, most programs aren't going to fire you for taking leave, just extend your training. You could theoretically take all your vacation right at the beginning of intern year but that will make the rest of the year suck.
