The Key: Flex Schedules
Many physicians who choose a career in HM do it because of the work-life balance the specialty affords, and many of the challenges women hospitalists face at the local level revolve around the schedule. That’s how Zenobia JonesFoster, MD, MPH, a hospitalist at Wellstar Health in Atlanta, views it.
“I think it’s very facility-dependent. I think when we look for a job and decide where we want to go, we really need to understand the culture and how people advance within that culture,” said Dr. JonesFoster, who attended the women’s issues workshop. “The academic environment has a lot more deferred policy and bureaucracy versus a private institution, but you’re going to find that anywhere.”
A hospitalist for a little more than two years, Dr. JonesFoster has two young children, ages one and three, and works in a group with 30 full-time hospitalists and 10 nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Her husband is a businessman, so schedules and work-life balance are a major concern.
“If I was given a job opportunity Monday through Friday, regular work hours, there’s no way I would take it because of the flexibility of hospital medicine hours, with the seven-on seven-off schedule,” she said. “The time I have off, I get to just be a mom and not think about work. But when I’m at work, I love it.”
Dr. JonesFoster’s group has seen an increase in patient census recently and just went live with a new hospital-wide electronic health records system, which has opened up more shifts and moonlighting opportunities. Attending her first annual meeting, she was most interested in learning the pros and cons of leadership positions, because her health system “offers a lot of opportunity for advancement” and is “talking about adding a residency program.”
“Another thing I wanted to learn about was mentorship,” she said. “I wanted to meet women who have done this before, who have had children, who are working full-time trying to do a little bit of everything. I wanted to see how they did it and try and learn from their experiences.”
From all accounts, mission accomplished.
Richard Quinn is a freelance writer in New Jersey.