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For the benefit of father-advisors: Clarify..."competitive."
Given it's hard to know what that will mean to oneself until after the gauntlet is thrown. And you get your first punch in the nose.
Well sounds like you hit hard. Good speed. Agility.
If you manage stress well and are a good time manager. Seems like those are reasonable goals.
I'm sure some fathers will stop by to give an impression of what that balancing act would feel like. Good luck.
Edit. Incidentally. Notice I apparently have more time to post on sdn. Guess my procreation rate.
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The problem with procreation is that it's a crapshoot. I also felt the pressure of my and my spouse's advancing years and we decided to go ahead and have a couple of kids in med school. It worked out well for me in that I now have two beautiful kids and I'm in my ideal residency. Part of the reason it worked for me, the gestator, is that my school doesn't charge tuition on an extended year and my husband and I decided that the opportunity cost was worth it, to have generous maternity leaves and a good strong angle on interview season in 4th year. I sat down with my Dean of Student Affairs about a year ahead of conceiving my first and decided on certain windows that would fit into 3rd and 4th year the best.
However some of my friends who were also trying to have kids in medical school had harder times, dealing with infertility (which can be a soul-sucking distraction from the endless studying) and severe prematurity. Thankfully, their son is now healthy but it was really touch and go and the father in that couple did have to extend his graduation a year after spending months haunting the NICU. The mother wasn't in medicine, in fact had no pressure to be working at all, and it still totally derailed the med student of the pair. My husband isn't in medicine, but was working full time all along. Thinking back, I don't know any med student-med student pairs that had kids. I think that would be harder.
All in all, my opinion is that there's never a really easy time to have kids. The specter of the aging ovary is a real thing and I'm very glad I had kids in medical school. Whether it's right for anyone else depends on them. Having a super-supportive partner and extended family is key. Also, there is likely to be no studying possible at home with a baby, you will have to be very explicit about having protected time at the library or coffeeshop.
Lots of people do fatherhood or motherhood during residency and it's not like that's easier than med school - we're just older on average and feeling the pressure more.
However some of my friends who were also trying to have kids in medical school had harder times, dealing with infertility (which can be a soul-sucking distraction from the endless studying) and severe prematurity. Thankfully, their son is now healthy but it was really touch and go and the father in that couple did have to extend his graduation a year after spending months haunting the NICU. The mother wasn't in medicine, in fact had no pressure to be working at all, and it still totally derailed the med student of the pair. My husband isn't in medicine, but was working full time all along. Thinking back, I don't know any med student-med student pairs that had kids. I think that would be harder.
All in all, my opinion is that there's never a really easy time to have kids. The specter of the aging ovary is a real thing and I'm very glad I had kids in medical school. Whether it's right for anyone else depends on them. Having a super-supportive partner and extended family is key. Also, there is likely to be no studying possible at home with a baby, you will have to be very explicit about having protected time at the library or coffeeshop.
Lots of people do fatherhood or motherhood during residency and it's not like that's easier than med school - we're just older on average and feeling the pressure more.
Not to minimize the father's role, but especially if everyone's healthy the father's big impact during the pregnancy and "4th trimester" when babies are still larval is largely supportive and could be spread around to friends and relatives if you need to cram for a test. If you both have very demanding plans in the next few years, I'd let the factors relating to her career weigh 3 or 4 times more heavily than yours. By which I mean if you aim for your lightest year but it's her hardest, that's going to suck a lot more than her lightest and your hardest, because other people can pick up your slack but not hers.
Also, hire out things sooner than you think. $75 once a month to get someone else to come in and scrub the toilets and floors is totally worth it, even in med school, when your nonmedical spouse is sick of you not doing your half of the housework. During the hormonal fluctuations of pregnancy this becomes even more important.
I'd suggest that if your med school curriculum is lots like mine was, 1st and 2nd and 4th years are better times to be fathers than 3rd year, because studying obligations can be shuffled around and surgery clerkship call can't. I think we had 6 or 7 new fathers in my class and they all did fine.
Keep in mind that though family obligations like this are a drag when learning the didactics, they quickly become a real plus in clinical application, when you are the only med student who knows how to get an infant's hand through a sleeve or restrain a toddler. Those practical things they don't teach you but your kids will.
Also, hire out things sooner than you think. $75 once a month to get someone else to come in and scrub the toilets and floors is totally worth it, even in med school, when your nonmedical spouse is sick of you not doing your half of the housework. During the hormonal fluctuations of pregnancy this becomes even more important.
I'd suggest that if your med school curriculum is lots like mine was, 1st and 2nd and 4th years are better times to be fathers than 3rd year, because studying obligations can be shuffled around and surgery clerkship call can't. I think we had 6 or 7 new fathers in my class and they all did fine.
Keep in mind that though family obligations like this are a drag when learning the didactics, they quickly become a real plus in clinical application, when you are the only med student who knows how to get an infant's hand through a sleeve or restrain a toddler. Those practical things they don't teach you but your kids will.
So path is competitive now?
The short answer is lots of med students have kids, but there are always time trade offs you have to make. The reality is med school rotations and residency are not very flexible institutions, and so you have to plan your life around them, and not the other way round. During the first two years of med school you have a bit of flexibility in terms of when you will study. You can more or less treat it as a long houred job. Lots of people working long houred jobs have kids. Third year things get crazy. On some rotations you can be stuck at the hospital 80 hours per week. You will have off 4 weekend days a month. And you generally will have studying for the shelf exams to do when you aren't at the hospital. In 4th year, things get easier, and you have a bit of elective time to work with in which the hours are better. However you may be needing to do away rotations. You may be travelling for interviews. So until the match, things can still be hectic. And then in residency, if you go into a field which has an intern year (eg radiology), you probably will be working 70-80 hours per week again, with only 4 days off per month. You probably will be doing months of night float. Overnight call. Etc. Even in advanced paths like radiology you will be taking call in your later residency years where you will be working in the hospital overnight. So the short answer is that there is never going to be a perfect time to have kids, but lots of people strike the best balance they can. The non-physician spouse has the shoulder more than their fair share during school and residency. If you have family help or can afford a nanny/ aupair, that would help too.
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Granted, like many have said already, there really is no ideal time to have a child. However, I think I would be much more comfortable with it after med school, when I do not have to worry about school, traveling to interview or elective rotations, etc. I suppose it is a personal preference in the end, but for some reason residency seems like it would be a better time for me.😕
Well, after residency would be the best, but that definitely is not an option, at least not with my current significant other.
well honestly you definitely have more "free time" and more flexibility during med school than in residency, so I doubt that residency is an "easier" time to have kids. And in residency you still will end up with interviews and boards hanging over your head (it never gets easier). Then again if you have kids in med school they are going to be old enough to notice you arent there during residency. So there's no perfect time.
Children are very troublesome and will take up more of your time that you can afford at any time in your life. There will never be a good time to have children. They take priority over the most important of urgent tasks and destroy your life. Having children is the most troublesome thing you will ever do. They are wonderful. My advice is to have a horde of them as soon as possible.
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A good chunk of the "top students" in my class had at least one child. It certainly can be done, but through med school and residency, you'll need the other parent to do more of the work than you. I had my first child as an M4, and my second one is on the way as a PGY-2.
I'm mostly just jealous right now of the huge vacations that the med students here get for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I got hosed on Thanksgiving on inpatient peds...
You'll probably have more than 4 days off per month when you average it out. We had one full weekend off in between every rotation. As an M4, I got close to those hourly limits and limited days off on my medicine and surgery sub-Is, but nothing else.
I'm mostly just jealous right now of the huge vacations that the med students here get for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I got hosed on Thanksgiving on inpatient peds...
Well, after residency would be the best, but that definitely is not an option, at least not with my current significant other.
Parenting is one of those endeavours you both have to be on board with. The phrasing "current significant other" makes me a teensy bit concerned that you have some significant uncertainty as to whether she will be your future significant other. This alone makes having kids in the near term a dodgy enterprise.
However, I will say that lots of men in my class have become fathers during med school and it seems just fine. The women who have become mothers take a full year of mat leave, so you can see there is a bit of gender inequity in the time commitments involved as others have pointed out.
If you want to have children with her some day, and you are confident that she is a long term partner, I wouldn't (as a mother of three) let being in med school or distance from family stop you from having one. For the next couple, I think that location will matter more as you are unlikely to have the time to be a really hands-on dad for the next 10 years or so.
Good luck with your decision.
Similar situation to mine. Older medical student and wife in late 30s. We had a child when I was a first-year medical student, another when I was an intern, and another in fellowship. If anything, the experiences enriched us.....I have something wonderful to go home to, and it made me more efficient as a student and as a doctor. A little accountability to someone other than number one is not a bad thing either. It can be done. Cost will likely be an issue, and you will have to sacrifice study time.
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