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I'm a female MS3 interested in OBGYN, but worried about the lifestyle and work-life balance.

My main interests are Obstetrics (clinic, deliveries) and Gyne (clinics, procedures).

How do I approach the issue of the busy and difficult schedule of an OBSGYN vs the desire to have more than sufficient time for family and eventually kids where I could be involved fully in their lives without stressing to find time.

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From what I hear,

While it is not the most laid back residency, ob/gyn is one of the better specialities in terms of setting your own work hours. Especially in this day and age, "job-sharing" is becoming more and more common among physicians who want to have more personal time and are not too concerned with some loss in income.

An example of job-sharing is this: there are positions for 2 full-time staff at the local hospital (clinic space, and OR time). 3 people will "job-share" to fulfill the 2 full-time staff positions.

Even in residency, I hear ob/gyn is very maternity- leave friendly vs other specialities such as gen sx/ortho/vascular.

Hopefully this gives you some relief, I would certainly talk to your staff/current residents about it. If you can, try talking to ob/gyn's currently working in community hospitals!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi,

 

In the future, I am also considering doing ob/gyn residency, and just like you I want to make sure that I have enough time to spend with my family, as well as time to do things that I enjoy. A close friend of mine who just finished her residency was telling me it was not that bad-- she even had her baby during her residency ( she finished her residency at U of C).

 

She said that at time the residency was quite demanding, but she still managed to have time to spend with her family. I think the work load is program specific, and it is dependent on the school.  Try to ask residents in your school about the work load in obs/gyn residencies, and whether it is difficult it is to maintain work -life balance, as well as ask about the kind of support they have for residents.

 

Best of Luck :)

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  • 1 month later...

Not a resident yet, but I'm coming off three months of OB/Gyn right now so I've spent a lot of time talking to the residents over the last bit because I had many of the same concerns (though having a family isn't a future thing for me.)

 

I asked lots of people very directly "is OB/Gyn residency as brutal as is rumoured?" Several answered yes, several answered that it's only the case during parts of it. Lots of the staff who I talked to about the difficulty of the profession said its really not as bad as people think, and the ability to tailor your practice to your interests is appealing.

 

It's a balancing act, as it always is when you have a family and a career (any career.) I have three kids so I've a pretty good idea of my needs are with regards to time with my family and honestly I can see that it will be challenging particularly during the earlier part of residency but long term it seems manageable. That's the story I've gotten from most people I have spoken to. The thing that I was told several times is that OB/Gyn isn't necessarily any more challenging from a career/life balance standpoint than any other specialty with regular call. If you're bound and determined to deliver every single one of your patients instead of taking part in a group that shares 24h coverage, then your lifestyle will suffer, but that doesn't seem particularly common.

 

I came away from my three months of OB/Gyn feeling like I can manage it, for whatever that's worth.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My main interests are Obstetrics (clinic, deliveries) and Gyne (clinics, procedures).

 

 

Med student matched to OB/GYN for whatever that's worth.

Lots of good things I agree with said above. 

 

Since you didn't mention surgery I thought I'd say just be aware that OB/GYN is very much a surgical subspecialty, and much of residency is focused on time spent obtaining surgical skills, completing the principles of surgery course and exam, etc.

In obstetrics--operative vaginal deliveries, C-sections, complex obstetrical repairs

In gyne--laparoscopic, vaginal, and open surgery, with a trend towards more technological minimally-invasive options

 

As a staff though you do spend relatively more time in clinic as a generalist. 

If you are primarily interested in clinic, deliveries, and office gyne procedures it's worthwhile to consider family medicine + a women's health year. (not looking down on this option, and of course being a family doctor doing deliveries there's another set of challenges in terms of managing time and practice) 

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As a staff though you do spend relatively more time in clinic as a generalist. 

If you are primarily interested in clinic, deliveries, and office gyne procedures it's worthwhile to consider family medicine + a women's health year. (not looking down on this option, and of course being a family doctor doing deliveries there's another set of challenges in terms of managing time and practice) 

 

Just to pick up on this, there's a slow trend in FM towards an FM set-up doing only women's health and deliveries. Especially with some small groups of OBGYN-focused practitioners, they have a call schedule for deliveries similar to a lot of delivery rooms, and then clinics focused pretty much entirely on ante-natal care and women's health. Generalist FM docs with standard office-based practice are trending decidedly away from deliveries, so there's enough demand at the moment for these semi-specialized FM docs, who fit halfway in between midwives and OBGYNs. 

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