A self-described Type A personality, Dr. Gilley said she also chose full time because she needs to be doing something at all times.
“On my weeks off, I love it and I enjoy being with my daughter, but sometimes I’m ready to go back to work,” she says.
Back to Work
Dr. Gilley didn’t ease back into work. She jumped right in.
“I was ready to see patients and get back to work to do what I was actually trained to do,” she says. “It was hard mentally and emotionally, but once I was there, I was like, ‘I like this and I can keep doing this.’ ”
It helps that she has a nanny she loves and trusts with watching her child. “I called several times the first couple of days, but after I knew my daughter was fine, I didn’t call as much,” she says.
Nevertheless, Dr. Gilley often asks herself if she is spending too much time at work and not enough time at home.
Hospitalists with babies face many of the same challenges as other working parents returning to the job after maternity leave, Owens says. They have to contend with competing responsibilities, lack of personal time, and separation guilt and anxiety, to name just a few issues.
“The first thing is take it easy,” she says. “Returning from maternity leave and back into your work life can sometimes feel like you’re diving into the deep end of a pool.”
Matuson says hospitalist moms have to be realistic and accept that balancing motherhood and medicine is going to be difficult. “They are going to be totally exhausted, so they have to learn to not take on more projects,” she says. “They have to learn to say no.”
Also, be prepared to feel guilty about being at the hospital and understand there is going to be a lot of making the best of a less-than-ideal situation, Dr. Yeh says. She breastfed her sons and can remember feelings of frustration with the breast-pumping, even though she used a hands-free pump that allowed her to read labs and answer pages. On one hand, she was providing her baby with breast milk but spending less time at home. On the other hand, if she skipped the breast-pumping to get home earlier, her baby didn’t get breast milk.
“There are a lot of different things that make up who we are. We are not just a physician and we are not just a mother,” Dr. Yeh says. “It’s really important to figure out your own balance.” TH
Lisa Ryan is a freelance writer based in New Jersey.
It has been several years since this article was published and the same issues remain. I took family leave after I had my baby, but it was longer than I anticipated, and getting back into hospital medicine had been impossible. I wish there was a support system in medicine to help parents transition. But unfortunately the current system has been very discriminatory and disappointing.