Happy Nice Mall

D., a hematologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. From the beginning, Ariela Marshall moved forward believing that she would be successful if she worked harder, longer and better. And he did: He graduated high school freshman, attended an elite university, and was accepted into one of the best medical schools.

But one success eluded him: having a baby. She delayed getting pregnant until she had a solid footing in her career, but when she finally decided to have children at 34, she was surprised to learn that she couldn’t do it even with fertility drugs. Dr. Marshall attributed this to working frequent night shifts, as well as stress and lack of sleep, which can affect reproductive cycles.

When she reached out to other female doctors to share her story, she learned she was not alone; many women in his line of business were also struggling with infertility or infertility. carrying a term baby.

Dr. “For many doctors like me, it’s all very well planned,” Marshall said. “Many of us decide to wait until our education is over and we are financially independent to have children, and that is not until we are in our mid to late 30s.”

To raise awareness on the subject, Dr. Marshall helped form an infertility task force with the American Medical Women’s Association. In June, the association held its first national physician fertility summit with sessions on egg freezing, fertility treatment benefits and insurance coverage, and infertility and mental health. The association plans to hold another summit next year.

The high infertility rate also applies to female surgeons. In a survey of 692 female surgeons published in JAMA Surgery in July, 42 percent experienced pregnancy loss – more than twice the rate of the general population. Almost half experienced pregnancy complications.

Like other female doctors, many surgeons delay pregnancy until after their assistants, making them more susceptible to health problems and infertility issues.

Often times, doctors have to navigate 10 years of medical school, residency, and fellowships. The average age for women to complete their medical education is 31, and most female doctors give birth at the age of 32 on average, based on a 2021 study. The average age at giving birth for non-doctors is 27.

Through social media, Dr. Marshall connected with two other female doctors struggling with infertility, and last year they He wrote about the subject in the Journal of Academic Medicinecalls for greater fertility education and awareness among aspiring physicians, beginning at the undergraduate level. They also recommended providing insurance coverage and access to fertility assessment and management, and offering support to people undergoing fertility treatment. (In December, Dr. Marshall gave birth to a healthy baby boy after completing a successful IVF cycle.)

41-year-old Dr. Arghavan Salles tried freezing his eggs for a year, but none were viable. The author of the article and a surgeon at Stanford, Dr. Salles also struggles with the cost of the procedure, which can cost up to $15,000 per venture. It explores intrauterine insemination, which is more affordable but less likely to succeed.

Wrote in 2019 An experiment in time It’s about her most fertile years training to be a surgeon and discovering that it might be too late to have a baby. Later, many female doctors contacted her to say that they were also dealing with infertility.

Dr. “They all felt very lonely,” Salles said. “They’ve all been through this roller coaster ride to deal with infertility on their own because people don’t talk about it. We need to change the medical school and residency culture. We need to do a better job of encouraging leaders on the ground to say, ‘Please go and deal with what you have to do’.”

Sleep deprivation, poor diet, and lack of exercise – typical of the demands of medical education and the medical profession – take a toll on women who want to get pregnant.

Even finding a partner can be difficult, given the demanding hours of work, including nights and weekends.

Dr. “The problem is that you have to spend a lot of time in the hospital, and it’s very unpredictable,” Salles said. “He could have looked back and said, ‘I should have had frozen eggs in my early 20s,’ but technology wasn’t very good back then. We see older women who are famous in the news having babies and we think that would be fine but it isn’t. Now we are all realizing that we have no control over our lives.”

D., dean of medical education at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine and another author of the paper. Vineet Arora discusses how she and other educators can best advise leaders in the medical field to address these issues.

Having undergone many IVF treatments in her 40s, Dr. “The thing that surprises me the most is that infertility is a silent struggle for many of these women, but when you see the data you realize it’s not uncommon,” Arora said. She finally gave birth to her second child last March.

He and Dr. Salles is analyzing data from a large study they conducted that asked doctors and medical students about their experience in starting a family and accessing infertility treatments.

Female residents who manage to get pregnant must also contend with poor health outcomes; Many give birth prematurely or experience miscarriages due to long hours and the stress of work. But pregnant female residents are still expected to work 28-hour shifts without sleeping. Dr. Arora and others want to see this change.

As executive chairman and former president of the American Medical Women’s Association, Dr. Roberta Gebhard says the group is advocating for more accommodation for pregnant doctors. they want to try having a baby later in their education.

“We educate med students and pre-med students about fertility issues so they are aware of them,” she said. “People say you can’t be a mom and a doctor and we say you can too, but you have to keep your options open. Most of them are not just about being able to get pregnant. Some of these women are so focused on their careers that they don’t get into a relationship.”

Even finding time and a private place to express breast milk while at work can be difficult for female doctors with babies. Dr. Gebhard said a doctor who asked for time to pump was instructed to go behind a potted plant in a public area to do so.

He is optimistic that things will start to change in the near future as over 50 percent of all medical school students are now women, but there are still more male doctors than females.

30 year old Dr. Racquel Carranza-Chahal recently completed her residency in OB-GYN and is now in private practice in Tucson, Ariz. She has a son and a daughter who she gave birth to while in medical school.

Dr. “When I was a resident, someone told me that if I wanted a scholarship, I had to divorce my husband and lose custody of my child,” Carranza-Chahal said.

She was on duty the day she spoke, and had just completed her second 24-hour shift in seven days, eight and a half months pregnant with her second child.

In 2019, she founded a nonprofit called Mothers in Medicine, which she hopes will increase visibility and community reach for female doctors who are pregnant or mothers.

Dr. “I want mothers in education to know that they need to take up space, that they belong, and that they have resources at their disposal, including legal ones,” Carranza-Chahal said. “Many residents give birth prematurely and experience complications. One day I will change that.”