carl@aoa.UUCP (Carl Witthoft) (02/13/86)
x
An interesting article from NEJM this week: following abstract
reprinted w/o permission.
"Pregnancy During Residency", M. Sayres,MD et.al., Harvard Med School
To identify possible barriers to women physicians who wish
to combine parenting with medical careers, we studied 56 of 64 pregnancies from the past 10 years in 63 of 66
Harvard -affiliated residency programs. Pregnancies during
residency were common ) 1 in 8 married women in 1983) and were usually
planned ( 77%). Most institutions were unprepared for pregnancies among
members of the house staff; 4/5 of the programs had no maternity-leave
policy. No one quit a residency program because of pregnancy, and pregnancy
rarely affected achievement of board certification. Whether the pregnant
women found pregnancy during residency a "pleasant" experience was determined
largely by whether the program director was supportive, whether the issue
of pregnancy was openly discussed within the program, and whether the
woman was permitted to return to work on a part-time basis for the first
weeks after maternity leave.
We conclude that pregnancy within residency programs should be expected and
planned for and that if proper arrangements are made, it need not be a
major problem for either the training program or the pregnant resident
(NEJM 1986; 314:418-23)
Among other things , the article points to resentment from other
house staff as a major problem facing the pregnant resident.
It's surprising how many programs have no maternity leave
policy, or then again maybe it's not...
Darwin's Dad ( Carl Witthoft @ Adaptive Optics Associates)
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