Invited Commentary <\/p>\n\n\n\n
December 13, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Medical training usually falls within the window of optimal fertility for most trainees.1<\/a><\/sup> Operating within the rigid confines of residency programs, the perceived realities of family planning can strongly bias medical students when making career choices about specialties.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo you want to be a surgeon? Don\u2019t you want a family?\u201d remains a common line of questioning posed to (usually female) medical students. Dason et al2<\/a><\/sup> examine this hidden curriculum around family planning at a single academic Canadian institution. Specifically, they explore factors that may prevent medical students from achieving their family goals. The findings, in short, reveal that a medical career, and especially a surgical one, is viewed to be incompatible with parenthood. Throughout residency and into independent practice, a culture exists such that any \u201ctime away from work\u201d is frowned upon. This was found to be particularly prevalent in surgical specialties.2<\/a><\/sup>The attitudes and perspectives of medical students in this study mirror the prevailing culture: as a profession, we value work and productivity above all else. It comes as no surprise that there is an epidemic of burnout3<\/a><\/sup> and a looming mental health crisis among surgeons.4<\/a><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Raising children and having a medical career are both demanding and time intensive\u2014and deeply worthwhile. The mythical work-life balance implies a false binary; instead, it is a constant ebb and flow with constantly changing priorities. A family has varying pressures and demands throughout the phases of a family\u2019s growth. Concurrently, the career pressures of medicine begin early in medical school, fostered within a stringent medical training system that offers little flexibility. These career pressures extend into residency, with its heavy clinical load and research obligations, and into independent practice, where administrative burdens take us away from what attracted us to surgery in the first place\u2014the joys of procedural mastery and the rewards of changing patients\u2019 lives through our knowledge and skills.5<\/a><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n