No Such Thing as Sick Days
It finally happened. I worked too much, ran myself down, and caught a cold.
As I described (see “May Madness”), May was extra busy for me, between 24-hour shifts, traveling for conferences, and mom-duties for lots of family celebrations. Naturally, after a family visit over Memorial Day weekend to celebrate even more milestones, I caught a virus and I’m still recovering. I am super grateful to a colleague who took one of my shifts so that I could stay home and recuperate.
Doctoring and Being a Mom: Same PTO
Driving home after my colleague agreed to cover me made me start thinking about how doctors don’t get sick days. We are expected to work all our shifts, regardless of what’s happening with us. There are no “substitute doctors” like teachers have. And you can’t just pass your patients off to another doctor.
On my first shift at my current job, I was so ill with a GI bug I could barely stand. But, I was still expected to perform two c-sections because that was my job that day. My colleagues said, “I’m so sorry, but oh well!” Afterwards I drove home and was violently ill. During my training, one of my colleagues was walking around with an IV pole attached to her arm on shift. She was vomiting so much that she was dehydrated, so an IV was her solution. This is our norm.
COVID was the only time I remember doctors actually taking time off when they were sick, because they were required to test themselves and quarantine if they were positive. This was a big change for us; we are so used to soldiering through it. Actually, toward the end, I remember people were getting sick but intentionally not testing themselves, because they were worried that there wouldn’t be enough people to cover their shift if they were out.
It’s much like being a mom. When we are sick, we have to keep doing mom things because nobody will step in for us. There are no “substitute moms.” Granted, if we’re lucky, we may have very supportive partners, but it’s not always possible to rely on them for everything. Some people don’t have partners, and they are making it happen as a single mom. More power to them.
Maybe it’s because the system was established when the field was dominated by men, who had wives at home to handle the family duties. If a man got sick, they could just rest and let their wives handle everything else. Or maybe because they were supported at home, male doctors didn’t get as run down, so they weren’t at risk of catching germs as easily. Either way, it seems crazy that we haven’t YET established a better system.
Culture of Caregiving… But Something’s Got to Change
Despite my cold, I’m attending the National Breastfeeding Conference and representing ACOG. It’s the first time I’ve been back to this conference in years. As I’ve said before, it’s unusual to be an OB-GYN who is also passionate about breastfeeding. The first time I attended this conference, I realized that there are other doctors also obsessed with breastfeeding, which made me feel much less isolated. These mentors took me under their wings, and we formed the ACOG Breastfeeding Working Group at the ABM meeting, an international physician conference of many different specialties, people who research and support breastfeeding.
This is a beautiful place to be because it’s a conference of caregivers. Many of them are traditional birth workers representing indigenous communities, lactation consultants, and other workers based in community healthcare, all supporting breastfeeding. They share many stories about their journeys, and everyone is celebrating how wonderful it is to be a caregiver to moms who are caring for their own children. I love the opportunity to connect with other likeminded people, along with friends I’ve made here.
Through all the story-sharing, part of the discussion has been about balancing the need to care for one’s patients and to care for one’s own family, because clearly most of the breastfeeding support infrastructure is women. I was talking to an older colleague about how she got interested in changing the system. She said, “I was working in an era when we did not have maternity leave. I was the chair of my program; I was still responsible for everything and I still had a thousand emails to answer. There was no space for me to be a caregiver at home. And I thought, this sucks! We have to do something!”
Important Question with No Answer… Yet
It’s amazing to be surrounded by like-minded people honoring the human side of being a mother and all the things that come with it. It’s really special to be with my physician colleagues who understand our specific struggle as caregivers on both ends.
I don’t have any answers yet on how to solve the problem, but I will continue to think about this. Maybe with enough of us thinking about it, we can change the system.
