For Cumming Students/Residents/Grads - Prospective Applicant with Young Children

[greenthumb]

Hi there - 

I'm a prospective applicant for the Cumming School of Medicine and I'm hoping for some thoughts from medical students at Cumming who are also parents.  I have two young children and a spouse who works full-time professionally.  We are fine financially as it stands, however I have a background in healthcare and a dream of going to medical school.  I'd like to chat with senior medical students, residents, or graduates as part of my due diligence.  I only want to take this step if my spouse and I are reasonably confident that it won't cause our family life to plummet.  

What is it like being a parent while completing medical school successfully?

Thank you, very much, for your time.

[3last]

This is a very late reply so I hope some people sent you DMs and you did apply! Many of my classmates are parents - I know of around a dozen people who have one or more children of various ages. It's certainly challenging, but doable. I think the parents get less sleep than the rest of us!! I know many of them wake up extra early or stay up late to study while their kids are sleeping. Your family life will absolutely change and it will be harder to make dedicated time (I experience this just with my spouse and pets). One of the challenges is that you can't guarantee a regular schedule, and you have to go with the flow where at some points during the year you'll have plenty of time to spend on personal life, and other points where you'll be nose to the grindstone and kinda disappear from home/family life for a few days or up to a week at a time. I am in pre-clerkship so I can't speak directly to anything that happens after that!

[winston87]

This is also a late response but might be of help if you did apply, or to others that are parents or expecting parents and awaiting their interview results. The link below is a document that was put together and sent to successful UofC applicants last year. It has a lot of advice that adds on to what was said above. The advice I've heard several times is to pay others to take care of things for you - hire a nanny, pay to get your house cleaned, use a grocery delivery service, etc - when you're a doctor the money you spent won't matter, it'll be much more important that you reduced your stress and spent that time with your family and studying instead of cleaning/etc.

https://ucan.ucalgary.ca/JQFileUpload.ashx?_method=GET&folder=Offer2022&file=8a.+Parents+in+Med+School+Class+of+2025.pdf

Definitely pursue medicine if that is your passion. So many people get through it while expecting, with babies, older kids, etc - you can do it too!