Hi folks,
I’ve been reading/searching for this topic and I’ve found some snippets, but please excuse me if this has been exhaustively covered - and a thread link would be much appreciated in that case! 
I’m curious about those of you who have been thru medical school and/or a residency with spouses and/or kids and how brutal the time demands were during those 7+ years. Specifically, how often were you able to have dinner and/or other quality time together?
I’ve been reading a couple of books on the subject (the most recent is “Becoming A Doctor - A Journey of Initiation in Medical School”) and the author has me a little concerned about this matter; from the sounds of it, he has zero life outside of medicine during these years and I can’t imagine maintaining a stable/healthy family if that’s the case.
I want badly to be a physician, but I am honestly not sure if I’m willing to completely sacrifice a family to do it.
I’d really be grateful for other’s experiences!
Thanks.
Liam
Great question. It shows that you have thought about the implications of the course you are contemplating. I’m between cases so I don’t have much time to reply, but there is no question that time with your family time will be greatly reduced during your training. There will be rotations in med school and residency which will leave you very little time for family pursuits. And others where you will have a bit more leisure. There will be conflicts, and you should be prepared to remember that your training is a top priority. Notice that I said a top priority, not the prime priority. Family is very important too. But you must be prepared to sacrifice some “domestic harmony” in the short term (if the process can be called short ) if you truly want to “complete the mission” in becoming a doc. I went to med school at age 37 in 1997. I just became an attending in anesthesiology this year. It was a long, challenging roller coaster ride both professionally and personally. My family took the ride with me, and somehow, some way, I remained married and have 2 great kids. There are many others like me in this organization who will attest to the same story. So remember that’s it not just you going to med school. Your family must be part of the decision, be committed, and supportive if you are to get through it all together. There is help along the way as you will find from the folks on this site. Sorry, gotta run… starting a case in OR 28. Good luck.
Quote:
Hi folks,
I’ve been reading/searching for this topic and I’ve found some snippets, but please excuse me if this has been exhaustively covered - and a thread link would be much appreciated in that case!
I’m curious about those of you who have been thru medical school and/or a residency with spouses and/or kids and how brutal the time demands were during those 7+ years. Specifically, how often were you able to have dinner and/or other quality time together?
I’ve been reading a couple of books on the subject (the most recent is “Becoming A Doctor - A Journey of Initiation in Medical School”) and the author has me a little concerned about this matter; from the sounds of it, he has zero life outside of medicine during these years and I can’t imagine maintaining a stable/healthy family if that’s the case.
I want badly to be a physician, but I am honestly not sure if I’m willing to completely sacrifice a family to do it.
I’d really be grateful for other’s experiences!
Thanks.
Liam
Hi there,
You DO NOT have to give up your family and family life to do medicine (or surgery for that matter). It is one of the biggest misconceptions that you cannot enjoy family time and be a good physician. Gone are the days that you did medicine to the exclusion of everything else in your life. You make time for the things in your life that are important. Will you be able to spend 24/7 with your family? No, but your family probably does not want to spend 24/7 with you.
All of my colleagues except one, have families and none has been divorced. All of my attendings except one have families and none has been divorced. My attendings run the gambit from Plastic to Pediatric Surgeons and they all make time for their families. The four Pediatric Surgeons (Pediatric Surgery has the broadest range of practice and is by far the most hands-on of the surgical specialties) that I work with all have wives and kids. They get to their kid’s games and have a very nice family life. They cover for each other and work as a group.
Family life and medicine are not mutually exclusive. Family life and medical school are not mutually exclusive. Your hours are not 9-5 but there are plenty of professions that have longer hours, not just medicine. You have to do some planning but you can have a very rewarding career and family life too.
Natalie
Quote:
Hi folks,
I’ve been reading/searching for this topic and I’ve found some snippets, but please excuse me if this has been exhaustively covered - and a thread link would be much appreciated in that case!
I’m curious about those of you who have been thru medical school and/or a residency with spouses and/or kids and how brutal the time demands were during those 7+ years. Specifically, how often were you able to have dinner and/or other quality time together?
I’ve been reading a couple of books on the subject (the most recent is “Becoming A Doctor - A Journey of Initiation in Medical School”) and the author has me a little concerned about this matter; from the sounds of it, he has zero life outside of medicine during these years and I can’t imagine maintaining a stable/healthy family if that’s the case.
I want badly to be a physician, but I am honestly not sure if I’m willing to completely sacrifice a family to do it.
I’d really be grateful for other’s experiences!
Thanks.
Liam
Well, the topic has been so exhaustively covered that when I tried to do a search, I got such a long list of possible results that it was pointless to try and sort through it. I’ve contributed to several of these discussions over the years but since I personally have some bajillion posts, going thru what I’ve written as a way to connect to threads isn’t going to help much either.
So here’s a new answer: First two years of med school is a predictable schedule; schools vary. At some schools you can schedule a lot of your time; at others, much of it is scheduled for you, but usually your evenings and weekends are “free” (though you’ll usually need to study) and your schedule is set up months in advance so you can plan ahead for important family stuff. You WILL see your S.O., kids, etc. Just like in college, you’ll get breaks for Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring break. At most schools you are off for several weeks between 1st year and 2nd year (though this is not universal). Anyway,the bottom line is, you’ve got a schedule you can work with to make sure you’ve got time with your family during Years 1&2.
It gets more challenging, but still do-able, during year 3 when you’re doing clinical rotations. There are going to be rotations where you aren’t home much on most days: on surgery, I left home at 4:30am, usually got home around 7pm and after doing my reading for the following morning, went to bed. Those were crappy weeks but even then, if I had a free day on the weekend I’d make sure that there was some free time for family stuff. And you’ll do overnight call during at least some of your rotations (again, this varies a lot from one school to the next), meaning you’ll leave your home one morning and not be back until some time the following afternoon. Those days are set up either in advance of the rotation, or at the start of the rotation, you know about them in advance, and you can work around them. Depending on the service, you may get some sleep on call and the next afternoon can feel like “free time,” which is nice. (on other rotations, you’ll be up all night and just want to go home and sleep) In my own experience, I had a month of tough schedule w/ call usually followed by a much easier schedule w/o call, meaning I was always home for dinner and usually home on the weekends. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected.
Fourth year of med school usually has a good bit of free time built into it because you need time off to go to residency interviews. You get to choose more electives and oftentimes these don’t involve call or weekend shifts.
During residency you’ll have the call thing to deal with again, of course: but on the days when you are NOT on call, you should expect to be home for dinner. When you ARE on call, of course, you’re in the hospital usually for thirty straight hours - this is generally no more often than every fourth night (to do it more frequently than that on a regular basis would cause you to exceed the average of 80 hours a week that is the legal limit).
As a second year family practice resident I am at the office from 8am to 6pm most days of the week. I do call about once a week - on those days, I might be home for dinner but more often am doing call work. I do get an afternoon off about every two weeks, and I am off about three weekends out of four. I did work Thanksgiving Day but I am off tomorrow.
Family things I’ve done since I started this: travelled with my daughter’s skating team to competitions in New England (long weekends during my first and third years of medical school), hosted my son’s wedding (weekend of Thanksgiving, my third year), attended Parents’ Day at my other son’s college (every year but one), gone out to dinner about once a month with my husband and a group of our mutual friends, took at least one weekend trip with my husband every year of med school, saw each Harry Potter movie the first weekend it came out… you get the picture. I really do still try to have a life. Sometimes I even succeed!
Mary
Thanks for the info, folks - I’m definitely feeling better about the possiblities.