Women and "illegal" questions

[martyshka82]

This may have just been the one program, but I was asked by EVERY single interviewer how many kids I planned on having, whether or not I was "attached" and so on. I feel like if I tell them the truth that I don't plan on having any, they don't believe me and I don't know what the polite and politically correct way to get out of that question is. Any advice?
Anyway it's not even any of their business. What part of career oriented female can't they grasp?!

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[scpichu888]

if the truth is you don't want any kids, then you should just say so. if anything, your being truthful in this sense is better than anything else you would say.
you could either say that, or say you don't know... which i think is worse bc it looks as though you haven't really thought about your future, esp given that you're a female.

 

[Caffeinated]

This may have just been the one program, but I was asked by EVERY single interviewer how many kids I planned on having, whether or not I was "attached" and so on. I feel like if I tell them the truth that I don't plan on having any, they don't believe me and I don't know what the polite and politically correct way to get out of that question is. Any advice?
Anyway it's not even any of their business. What part of career oriented female can't they grasp?!

Sounds like the program has been "burned" before and they are being hypervigilant. I'm not saying it is right, but if a program has had a bad experience with a female resident who got pregnant, this might make everyone a little crazy about interviewing female applicants.

For what it is worth, I (a married male with one child) have been asked countless times if I am married, if I have children, how old my child is, if we planned to have more, what kind of work my wife does, if we have family in the area, etc. It's part of getting to know somebody--where they are now, where they see themselves going--both personally and professionally.

 

[Olddog1]

Sounds like the program has been "burned" before and they are being hypervigilant. I'm not saying it is right, but if a program has had a bad experience with a female resident who got pregnant, this might make everyone a little crazy about interviewing female applicants.

For what it is worth, I (a married male with one child) have been asked countless times if I am married, if I have children, how old my child is, if we planned to have more, what kind of work my wife does, if we have family in the area, etc. It's part of getting to know somebody--where they are now, where they see themselves going--both personally and professionally.

Women get pregnant and it does change the dynamic of the program for a few months, but it would be unusual for a good applicant to be turned down because they are female (you would automatically exclude ALOT of great applicants). There are alot more women in Ophthalmology in the program director and faculty roles now so the "good ole' boy" thing does not happen as much (I hope). The "illegal" questions are asked to get to know you, male or female. If you are single would you be a great fit for a little program in the middle of nowhere where the city is more family oriented, or would you be a better fit in a larger city with a better social life? The interviewers are looking to see who would do well in their program.

 

[kassie]

Career oriented female doesn't mean no kids. I consider myself very career-oriented and will be having a kid any day now. I will not be taking any more time off than what my program gives all the other interns. I'm starting ophtho until July so I'm lucky that the 40 others in my intern year hopefully won't suffer too much if I do go a little early.

With ophtho being so small, I can see their concern. BUT they're breaking the rules and I see it as a red flag. That would move them further down the rank list. I got questions like that and I would say it would be a serious thing to think about becuase ophtho programs are so small. But then again, 50% of pregnancies are unplanned and ones that are trying to be planned don't always happen. No real answer, but a view on my perspective of being a team player.

 

[Visioncam]

Even if illegal questions are asked, you have no recourse unless you don't want to be an ophthalmologist. That's anti-woman.

Some programs want women and don't want men. One chair said that women often work part time and there are too many ophthalmologists so he wanted to decrease the number of ophthalmologists by taking women as residents. Illegal! That's anti-man.

Illegal behavior against men and women may even out???

 

[Wolverine98]

Even if illegal questions are asked, you have no recourse unless you don't want to be an ophthalmologist. That's anti-woman.

Some programs want women and don't want men. One chair said that women often work part time and there are too many ophthalmologists so he wanted to decrease the number of ophthalmologists by taking women as residents. Illegal! That's anti-man.

He's half right. It's true that women are significantly more likely than men to work part time in medicine. However, many feel that this will be contributing to the huge coming shortage in ophthalmologists. We have the baby boomer population hitting the cataract/glaucoma/AMD, and we are not training significantly more ophthalmologists. Then compound that with the fact that a much larger proportion of trainees are women, so there will be much more of a part-time workforce, and we're looking at a big shortage. Southeastern Michigan, for example, was recently projected to be several hundred ophthalmologists short within 20 years.

Our program had 3 pregnancies in one class. It can be a very big strain on the other residents, especially if they overlap.

Dave

 

[Wolverine98]

I wanted to bump this from something that came up recently about asking illegal questions.

The reason many people will ask the "illegal" questions is that they don't know they're not supposed to, and are just making conversation. Typically the PD, coordinator, chair, and a few others reliably know what's off-limits, many other interviewers who avoid the administrative side of things have no idea, and this includes resident interviewers.

I'm sure this isn't always the case, but I've checked at 3 other programs, and it's definitely not uncommon. I guess it's one more thing that the SFMatch hasn't done a great job about letting people know.

Dave

 

[ophthoking]

I wanted to bump this from something that came up recently about asking illegal questions.

The reason many people will ask the "illegal" questions is that they don't know they're not supposed to, and are just making conversation. Typically the PD, coordinator, chair, and a few others reliably know what's off-limits, many other interviewers who avoid the administrative side of things have no idea, and this includes resident interviewers.

I'm sure this isn't always the case, but I've checked at 3 other programs, and it's definitely not uncommon. I guess it's one more thing that the SFMatch hasn't done a great job about letting people know.

Dave

I disagree....Everyone knows that these types of questions are off-limits. People often asked me to list where else I was interviewing and where I was ranking them. Obviously not very highly after seeing how they break the rules that are there to protect the applicants/future residents.

 

[thirdunity]

Interesting - should I even mention I'm in a lesbian relationship?

 

[ckyuen]

While it may seem like it's difficult to have child during residency imagine doing so in private practice. If you have child and have 14 employees like we do you still pay those salaries while you are on maternity, and your short term disability will not cover any of it. If you are in a group practice everyone takes the hit as it will increase overhead and this will not be looked upon favorably by the partners. Imagine 25 to 30 k of dead overhead for each month you are out and each partner paying an equal share. vs residency where overhead is much less, and the university can easily absorb your absence with so many other doctors. Even more difficult would be solo practice, it could bankrupt you. If you are planning to have children man or woman and planning to take a lot of paternity leave ie 6-12 weeks you should consider the financial implications. That being said I wouldn't trade anything in the world for my daughter or the time we have together. I just try to see more people in less time.

 

[WhiteDots]

Personally, I don't think it really matters whether or not they ask these kinds of questions. Just be honest. If them knowing that you want to have a family affects how they rank you, it's better off that you don't go to their program, because if you do have a family, you want to go to a program that is very supportive of having a family. I can name at least 6 of the top 15 ophtho programs who are VERY family friendly (because we talked about it in my interviews).

I am a big believer that you want to go to a program where you want to be happy. It doesn't do you any good to go to a 'top ranking' place where you aren't going to be happy, because it'll show with your peers and your attendings and ultimately affect your relationships that you build and potential future LORs if you plan on fellowships or even job placement.

Honestly, i think a few programs may ask that question because they have been burned, but i also think most programs ask that question because the interviewer is just trying to make conversation or to gauge how much of a team player you are. It came up with my interviews alot that they noticed my wedding ring.. asked if i was married.. and then asked if I had children. And I don't think it has affected the way programs have perceived me (since I have gotten favorable replies). I say all this to simply say... be honest. Who cares if they ask you these questions. There could be a million reasons why interviewers ask these questions. In life, there are alot of uncertainties. The only thing is I think in this process is you can just be honest. If you prefer not to reply, then say so in a polite way. I think integrity counts for alot instead of playing this residency game. And, from what I can tell of my interactions with ophtho programs out there.. i think integrity counts for a lot.

If the married and kids questions came up, and the interviewer expressed concerns.. you can easily have addressed those concerns by simply saying that you believe each resident should be a team player and carry their own weight and work together. You work hard, etc. etc... and that usually more than suffices to cover their concerns and move on. If you make it more than a bigger deal than it is.. it'll probably show.. and send of more warning flags with interviewers who are 'hypervigilant' about this issue. It's really a non-issue if you approach it as one and only turns into an issue if you make it into one [and I'm speaking about this issue from a married person who will plan on having kids during residency].

 

[Xipper]

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[Andrew_Doan]

If the program doesn't really support women having babies, then as a woman do you really want to be a resident there? There are so many good programs. I'd say move on, and the program just lost a potentially outstanding resident.

 

[Wolverine98]

I disagree....Everyone knows that these types of questions are off-limits. People often asked me to list where else I was interviewing and where I was ranking them. Obviously not very highly after seeing how they break the rules that are there to protect the applicants/future residents.

That's absolutely untrue. Several people at our institution who were interviewing had absolutely no idea that many of these topics were not allowed (especially the ones in regards to family, marriage, children, etc). You have to remember that some of the people interviewing had been interviewed by a different generation, when there was no such thing as an off-limits topic. If they don't keep up with the political side of things, they have no reason to know those things are out of bounds now.

Asking where you've interviewed is actualy OK, according to the reading I've done. Asking how you're ranking is not.

I also agree with Dr. Doan and Whitedots. Do you really want to go somewhere where they won't be OK with your personal life?

 

[Wolverine98]

Interesting - should I even mention I'm in a lesbian relationship?

Unfortunately, I would have to say no, you shouldn't.
While many people would not care, there are still people out there who would have a problem with this, and there's really no reliable way to know that ahead of time.
The more important thing, IMO, will be finding a place to live that will be more open. If I were in your situation, this aspect of a program would rank much higher than it would for other people. It won't matter much to you, but it will to your partner. As an example, I can tell you that somewhere like Michigan would be a much better atmosphere than, say Nebraska or Utah. I'm just basing this on the places I'm most familiar with, but in general, the college towns will be a better environment.