Diversity & Inclusion Can You Tell I’m Pregnant?

Can You Tell I’m Pregnant?

By Michelle Suh, MD, on behalf of the SAEM Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine

Can you tell I’m pregnant? I don’t want people to know until after I match.” As the fourth-year medical student turned to her side, the other applicants and I tried to tell if we could see any telltale bump. Now three years later, on the other side of the now virtual residency application process, I have grown familiar with the regular cadence of recruitment conversations about a program’s acuity, the city’s benefits, then the sudden awkwardness before an applicant hesitantly asks if there’s a parental leave policy. As an emergency medicine resident, I have watched eagerly as residency programs roll out initiatives to try to increase racial diversity among trainees. However, emergency medicine must do better to support trainees trying to be parents during residency. Emergency medicine should discuss issues of family planning and parental leave more openly, as it is an issue that affects all genders. Even writing this article, I have an urge to clarify that I am not pregnant nor planning to have children until my formal training is complete. Additionally, parental leave is not an issue exclusively for women or even applicable for all women. As Dr. Anita Chary astutely observed in a recent ACEP Now article, conflating women’s issues with motherhood reinforces an oversimplified view of women as a homogenous group with

“Emergency medicine should discuss issues of family planning and parental leave more openly, as it is an issue that affects all genders.”

no nuance in personal circumstance or needs. That said, I recall being warned as a medical student that working overnight and punishing pace of emergency department shifts made motherhood and being an emergency physician a hard combination. Having never been pregnant, I cannot speak from personal experience, but I have seen my coresidents and attendings, with institutional support, navigate pregnancy and motherhood with grace.

From a residency perspective, we must understand that during the application and interview process, applicants may be reluctant to ask for information about family planning in residency for a variety of reasons. First, it may be private information they do not feel comfortable disclosing. Second, there is a common fear that pursuing a family in residency signals a lack of commitment to our professional training and development. Third, especially in programs without adequate support and policies, there is a hesitation to burden our colleagues with picking up additional shifts or call when someone is out on parental leave.

Residency programs must signal their clear support of trainees becoming and being parents during residency. Part of the success of recruitment season “Diversity Days” and underrepresented (URiM) in medicine scholarships, lies in the clear commitment of residency programs to racial diversity. Similarly, programs could include a one-pager in their recruitment materials about parental leave and other policies. Websites could contain a dedicated section that addresses their current policies. Of course, the promotion of these resources and support rely on the presence of institutional support. Further conversations are needed to develop sustainable institutional practices that support all trainees, including those navigating parenthood during residency.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Suh is a second-year Baylor College of Medicine emergency medicine resident. Her interests include race and gender, carceral health, and medical education. She can be reached on Twitter at @MSuh25 or michelle.suh@bcm.edu.