Women Radiologists

[confL]

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Hopefully this question has not been asked before if so please link the thread. I was curious to know if it is safe and feasible to practice radiology and have children; meaning could you practice while you were pregnant. The reason I ask this is because I was told by someone that if a women plans to have bear children naturally, and she is a radiologist, she may have to take time off prior to planned conception and during the pregnancy as to not harm the fetus due to the exposure to radiation. If that is true and if anyone has experienced this, how do hospitals/residencies handle female radiology pregnancies?

 

[werewethere]

Hopefully this question has not been asked before if so please link the thread. I was curious to know if it is safe and feasible to practice radiology and have children; meaning could you practice while you were pregnant. The reason I ask this is because I was told by someone that if a women plans to have bear children naturally, and she is a radiologist, she may have to take time off prior to planned conception and during the pregnancy as to not harm the fetus due to the exposure to radiation. If that is true and if anyone has experienced this, how do hospitals/residencies handle female radiology pregnancies?

Radiation exposure for diagnostic radiologists is on par with non-radiologists. You would be sitting at the computer most of the day, interpreting studies, so any increased dose would be from the monitors, not the studies.

I believe this also applies to NM, although someone with more experience hopefully will chime in.

As for IR, exposure is inherently higher, so that might require time off or a change in routine during gestation, but again, someone with more experience can probably give you a better idea.

 

[Docxter]

One of my former IR attendings was a woman and she worked like everyone else through her pregnancies and had three kids. Never took time off except for standard maternity leave. The female residents in my class, when pregnant, would switch their IR and fluoro rotations with someone else and then pay them back later.

 

[f_w]

Entirely feasible.

There are established exposure levels for pregnant radiologists (and more commonly RTs). Most choose to reduce their exposure during pregnancy by minimizing interventional and fluoroscopic procedures during 1st and 2nd trimester (by 3rd trimester, they'll minimize it automatically bc nobody in their right mind wants to stand or wear lead at that point).

The radiation exposure for a diagnostic radiologist who doesn't do fluoroscopic procedures is nil (or more precisely: not above background radiation). Even your PACS monitors are LCDs for the most part, so even that exposure has been eliminated.

During residency, it can pose a problem. If you are at a program with only one resident on-call (like most), you can have a situation where the pregnant resident shouldn't do any fluoro or IR. We never had that situation, our contingency plan (once we had a female recently married 1st year) was to institute a rotating backup home-call to come in in case of on-call fluoro procedures (which are few and far in between in the first place).

 

[lucyz02]

I treid a literature review on this topic (pregnancy and fluoro exposure); there only limited articles and no concensus. Most is about GI/cards who use alot of continuous exposure.
What are the current reccomendations? Please post any EBM studies if you have them.
Specifically I am asking regarding interventional pain procedures were fluoro is used mostly for confirmation of needle and minimal continuous exposure, typically only for cervical procedures to verify if there has vascular uptake, again not a common procedure for the months concerned.

Thanks-