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Addressing the Work–Life Imbalance

Jeff Cleary Tarayn Fairlie

I’m always late for morning conference, despite almost daily efforts to make it on time. Usually, it’s no big deal. Most of the interns, in particular, come in about 10 to 15 minutes late. The conferences themselves cover topics that are easy enough to follow, like asthma or other familiar pediatric fare. Even if I miss a few minutes, I can usually follow the lecture itself without much difficulty.

The other morning, though, I was completely taken aback when I came into conference and saw the words “Child Care Options” on the projected PowerPoint slide. At first, I thought the speaker—our residency director, who is also an infectious diseases specialist—was talking about infection rates in day care facilities.

After a few moments of listening to various faculty share personal experiences (and after whispering a few questions to the other resident standing next to me in the back), I finally figured out that the topic of that day’s conference was work–life balance, with a focus on part-time and family-friendly work schedules, a topic that is a significant departure from our usual academic lectures. I was surprised to see the topic covered, to say the least, and even more surprised that it was given a full hour of dedicated time. Though balancing work and family life is a huge issue for most physicians—and a topic that is particularly important for our program, which now has five pregnant residents—I can count on one hand the times that the subject has even been mentioned during my training. I’ve certainly never seen it given top billing as an academic topic or otherwise publicly discussed in any formal way.

Prior to that morning conference, the only time I had heard anyone talk about work–life balance were the few furtive occasions in which a colleague mentioned that she was working part time (or, more commonly, “4/5 time”). Usually, that was where the discussion ended, too, since almost no one seemed comfortable talking about any concessions they had made for the sake of family commitments, as if there was a stigma attached to being anything less than a full-time physician. After eight combined years of medical school and residency training, I can safely say that this attitude seems to be the norm, and open discussions about the options available to balance work and family, like our recent morning conference, are the exception rather than the rule.

Naturally, this makes me appreciate our family-friendly faculty and work environment at Baystate even more. However, it also makes me wonder how physicians in training are supposed to learn how to find balance and job satisfaction both at home and at work if no one is willing to share their experiences. It would be great to de-stigmatize part-time, flex-time, and other non-traditional ways to balance work and family life. That’s unlikely to happen, though, especially when young physicians most likely to seek out these opportunities don’t know what the possibilties are for non-traditional work schedules. Maybe what we need is an anonymous forum where physicians who have found creative ways to balance family and career can tell their stories without concerns about what their colleagues might think. I know most young physicians—and their families—would be grateful for the guidance.

—Tarayn Fairlie, HMS ’06, is an intern in pediatrics at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass.

The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Harvard Medical School, its affiliated institutions, or Harvard University.

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Copyright 2008 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College