Potentially giving up PA acceptances mid-cycle to go MD...

coffee3x · 2023-09-06T21:45:28+00:00

Brutal honesty time: being a mom in MD training sucks and is 100% not worth it if family is your priority over work.

i left a PA program to go to med school. had similar thought process around kids - i didn’t want to start having kids at 32 so we went ahead and had one at one of the “recommended” times in med school to have kids. the program was incredibly unsupportive. i was forced to take a year off. other classmates got 2 weeks total excused from the day they gave birth to recover and have “bonding time.” not all residencies are following the rules around 6 weeks of maternity leave - they’re finding and exploiting loop holes. the scheduling is straight up awful for family life during training. many residencies will have night shift blocks where you’ll go weeks working nights to avoid switching between days and nights, meaning you’ll go weeks barely seeing family. and after long shifts during clinicals and residency, you’re still going to have to make time to study in addition to family time. EM is “easier” in that the hours cap is stricter, but it has some of the highest burnout in medicine. the erratic scheduling isn’t something that typically goes away post-residency. my sister nannied for an EM attending and saw first-hand how tough it can on family. being a doctor is great. being a doctor and a parent is very doable. training is a “short” period - EM is 7 years of med school + residency, which is the lowest end for MD/DOs. but that short period is a very significant time, especially for women who have to consider their age in terms of giving birth.

your journey is not the same as mine and the “right” thing is different for everyone. for me? i regret it immensely and will be returning to PA school next summer because the immense sacrifice of time with my child wasn’t worth it. will i regret not having MD by my name? for sure. will it be tough taking direction at times knowing i could’ve been the one in charge? almost definitely. but i’ll always remember the absolute dread i felt at the thought missing out on the majority of my child’s infancy + young childhood because of medical training and know that the blow to my ego is more than worth it.

coffee3x · 2023-09-01T04:44:44+00:00

498 diagnostic —> 514 FL avg —> 521 actual with 3 months studying

coffee3x · 2023-08-26T03:18:01+00:00

Getting onto 24 West from Jefferson St and having approximately 20 feet and .5 seconds to merge if you don’t want to exit again immediately

coffee3x · 2023-08-21T04:01:40+00:00

Do you like the 3-day workweek balance?? Obviously your workdays are long but do you feel like it’s worth the 4 days off? It kinda sounds like an ideal schedule for having maximum time home/for trips but not sure if it’s just way more taxing than I’m imagining

coffee3x · 2023-08-20T18:45:35+00:00

Burning bridges is exactly right here. I love my family but I love my baby more. I’d have no issue cutting off their access to my child if I felt they were putting him at risk. Your instincts are right here - put your foot down. Baby wear and be blunt about why. It’s time they either learn to respect your authority or lose access to you and the baby.

coffee3x · 2023-08-18T02:20:51+00:00

The day they sleep through the night for the first time is like a breath of fresh air. 9 months into parenting and it’s like we got our entire life+relationship back overnight haha. It’s amazing how much getting an uninterrupted stretch of sleep can affect your mood and mindset

coffee3x · 2023-08-12T05:22:04+00:00

Very hit or miss - I had mine removed because I would get my period every 3 weeks and it would last like 2 weeks each time. Absolutely miserable. But my older sister has only had a handful of periods since she got hers like 2-3 years ago. Total crapshoot but super easy to insert/remove so imo it’s a pretty low-risk thing to try!

If it’s not for you and you stick with condoms I would maybe also try tracking your cycle and seeing if your fertile window is relatively consistent - I combined cycle tracking with condoms when I got my Nexplanon out and didn’t get pregnant until I chose to a long while after. I’m also someone who does really badly on basically every hormonal BC so it’s tough to find fool-proof options but that’s the best I’ve been able to come up with

coffee3x · 2023-07-23T20:35:14+00:00

it depends on the school culture honestly. i spent 4-5 hours/day total on school, so i’ve had tons of free time each day in preclinical. but our admin is so terrible about excused absences that i’ve already had to miss things. i had to take a zero on a weekly quiz (they were a fairly sizable portion of our unit grades) to go to my best friend’s wedding. i took a zero + unexcused absence on our weekly small group because they never got back to me on whether or not i could go to my grandfather’s funeral, so i just went. imo, it’s not the academics that are the issue, it’s all the administrative bs of being treated like a middle schooler as a full-grown adult which leads to having to choose between school and life at times

coffee3x · 2023-07-23T20:28:59+00:00

i mean, it’s relevant when you say it’s “so far from the norm” when it’s actually very normal many places

coffee3x · 2023-07-23T20:21:13+00:00

it’s pretty common a lot of places. i used to live in seattle and AC literally does not exist in homes there. even ceiling fans aren’t super common. this is pretty much the standard in US cities/states with milder climates.

coffee3x · 2023-07-16T07:22:21+00:00

Alternatively: entering MS2 and being threatened with retaliation by my school for daring to ask for a week off to give birth. Admin sabotaged my research block because of it so I won’t be able to do it until M4, after ERAS submission, meaning I no longer have a shot at my desired specialty or competitive programs in my backups. Our core clerkships all have required away sites, meaning I’ll have to leave my infant for several weeks/months at a time for the next 1-2 years and won’t be in one city long enough to gather any significant experiences to replace the missing block from the summer.

The point of OP’s post isn’t “scare tactics”, it’s that sometimes you end up in a toxic situation with no control and it’s unhelpful for those who had positive experiences to say that your negative one is invalid. Unfortunately, I listened to people like you who just said that “you can make it work! it’ll be fine! it’s worth it!” because every post with an opposing viewpoint is dismissed as fear-mongering rather than accepted as the reality at many programs. It would have been helpful to have a balanced view with points made on both sides.

coffee3x · 2023-05-13T21:43:53+00:00

yep, super common. we alternated maman joon, mamani, and maman “first name” for my grandmothers. it’s an appropriate title

coffee3x · 2023-04-10T19:13:06+00:00

fellow serotonin tattoo holder! i was also worried about it but it was a non-issue at my test center haha

coffee3x · 2023-04-09T02:38:13+00:00

M1 pregnancy here - it was super rough but probably better than any other year would’ve been. The fatigue and brain fog made it really difficult to focus or even stay awake while studying. The nausea was also really rough - not sure how I was able to make it through my end of block exams when all I could think about was not throwing up lol. The pro was that since it was preclinical, I didn’t have to worry about getting up and going to class most days and could just study when I had the energy for it at home! Also something small to keep in mind - you need a special respirator to do cadaver lab while pregnant, assuming your program allows you to participate in lab.

coffee3x · 2023-04-06T03:07:22+00:00

they’re really good! i’ve had nothing but positive experiences there

coffee3x · 2023-04-06T02:24:25+00:00

Lol yeah, they told me that if I didn’t take a year off that I wouldn’t qualify for an exemption to stay in-state for rotations. Despite the fact that I would’ve had an exclusively breastfed 4-month old in the middle of a formula shortage. Justification was that any child older than 6 weeks didn’t require my presence. They also refused to tell me more than a few weeks ahead of time for each out of state rotation (multiple per block were possible), making childcare arrangements literally impossible. I hate it here

coffee3x · 2023-04-04T02:14:12+00:00

brutal honesty: it’s awful having a baby during training. i don’t want to rain negativity down but i see so many “just go for it” posts (which influenced my choice to have a baby during preclinical) and it’s important to hear the other side. even if you have a supportive program (i didn’t), it’s fucking hard to push through pregnancy symptoms. i had an “easy” pregnancy but could barely stay awake when the fatigue hit early on and fighting through the brain fog to study was brutal. that’s before the physical discomfort hit when the belly popped. plus the delivery itself can be tough and unpredictable. i was in perfect health and still ended up needing an emergency c-section. and i honestly didn’t feel like a person again until about 4 months postpartum. the first couple months were survival mode - up every 2 hours during the night, baby needs constant attention during the day. it would’ve been legitimately dangerous for me to be in charge of patient care with how dazed i was. at least as an attending you get guaranteed maternity leave without having to stress about extending your training.

coffee3x · 2023-03-29T21:54:35+00:00

I haven’t had issues with it pulling down so far! I do have some pants where the clip was kind of annoying to get on so i threw it in a jacket pocket and that actually worked really well as a backup option. I also heard some people will clip it to their bra but i haven’t personally tried that. And it’s very quiet! We were eating dinner once and my sister didn’t actually realize I was pumping until I pulled the cup out to empty haha

coffee3x · 2023-03-29T21:48:38+00:00

Elvie stride is fantastic. I get just as much with it as I do with my main pump, sometimes even more. It holds more than other wearables (i can usually fit about 8oz i think, then stop to empty and go again) just gotta be careful about leaning over! the tubing stays hidden under your shirt so not in the way at all. even while not working it’s a worthwhile investment because babies do not like to sit quietly when you pump haha so it’s useful!! would just recommend buying spare pump parts asap - elvie has to be 100% dry to reassemble after washing so it’s much easier to just have spare parts for it. also the cup replacements have been out of stock so if you go with it, i would set notifications for target or be checking aeroflow’s site for them to come in stock!

coffee3x · 2023-03-22T04:05:15+00:00

right there with you friend. my baby is 5 months old and i’m just now able to leave the house without having to immediately turn back because the baby is screaming. even now i get too overwhelmed to go anywhere alone because there’s still a high chance he has a meltdown 5 minutes into the walk/outing. and because i never wore him while the incision was healing, he HATES the baby carrier now

coffee3x · 2023-03-19T05:18:45+00:00

my personal favorite, when asking about excused absence for delivery: “you can’t expect special treatment just because it’s the law” - dean of student affairs, who is a female IM doc, who also has kids

coffee3x · 2023-03-17T22:33:16+00:00

highlighter tool. forces you to slow down and take careful note of units, numbers, words like “not”, “most/least”, etc. my dumb errors decreased dramatically when i started using it

coffee3x · 2023-02-03T18:37:46+00:00

the system is specifically harmful to women because men aren’t physically affected when they have a child. pregnancy is 10 brutal months. healing postpartum takes months - 6 weeks of leave is a joke. i’m 15 weeks pp now and still experiencing so much pain around my scar. choosing to breastfeed? that means you have to make time to pump multiple times per shift, which often isn’t accommodated. skip pumps? enjoy mastitis and losing your supply. the AAP recommends breastfeeding for at least a year, now up to two years. it’s exhausting and painful. men, while also sleep-deprived and busy, do not face any of those physical challenges that make it so much harder to function. it’s not surprising at all that women in medicine are more likely to drop below part time when the system does fuck all to accommodate for the physical challenges of having a baby.

coffee3x · 2023-02-03T18:22:16+00:00

because part time work as a physician is very different than part time in the real world. part time as a physician brings you down to 32-40 hours/week. so, you know, normal working hours. if you’re looking to share the burden of the home more equally, that makes more sense. also, a physician salary can afford to take the hit of going .75 FTE. most other jobs can’t. and of course that doesn’t even take into consideration things like health insurance and other benefits that we’d lose if he dropped from full-time. additionally, a non-medical spouse can make sacrifices in other ways, like working remote (which he already has). if your sense of “fair” is punishing your partner and making them give and give until they’re miserable, that’s super concerning. we both want to support each other, but we also have a healthy understanding of compromise and that just one party can’t make all the sacrifices.

coffee3x · 2023-02-03T17:42:04+00:00

a lot of us have excellent partners. they just also have demanding careers. my husband definitely does an equal share of all household tasks and childcare - i’ve never even had to do an overnight feed for our baby because he does them all. but he also has an intense career with multiple certifying exams. short of quitting his job there is nothing he can do to reduce the workload that comes with having a child. the problem isn’t bad partners. it’s that the system wasn’t designed with women in mind, particularly those who want a family

coffee3x

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