Female Force Save

In medicine, a field where burnout is becoming the norm, there is much promotion of the idea of work-life balance. In reality, the scales between work and life aren’t really balanced. I find myself running a 14-lane highway in my head at any given point in time, the majority of lanes riddled with to do’s and coordination of my children’s busy social and extracurricular calendars from music, to sports, to academics, to playdates. From ensuring there are nut free snacks at home for the playdate on Tuesday to prepping for my clinic on Wednesday, there is no balance.  

In the home, the majority of these little nuances are cared for by women. In medicine, women are increasing in number (AAMC reports that more women matriculated to medical school than men in 2022-2023, download (aamc.org), meaning the tasks of patient care are also being completed by women.

In pediatric rheumatology we are fortunate that females form most of the younger workforce entering training, as they may be able to influence a shift of the priorities to ones more sustainable for joyful professional and personal balance. 

The American Board of Pediatrics dashboard notes that since 2011, anywhere between 65 -80% of pediatric rheumatology trainees identified as females (Subspecialty Fellowship Statistics | The American Board of Pediatrics (abp.org)). This is a blessing as I have benefitted and learned from strong role models and women as my mentors. Some worked part time and others flexed time based on their circumstances to ensure they balanced home and work to the best of their abilities. I learned to emulate them to try and strike a semblance of balance. Having strong women as leaders helps lift the next generation of learners and workers. 

During my time in rheumatology, the landscape of medicine has changed drastically from incorporating ultrasound at the bedside, to increasing availability of biologics and small molecules thus allowing for improved disease control in children with rheumatic diseases, to zooming in for work meetings and expansion of telemedicine and the virtual joint exam (v-PGALS) allowing us to see children remotely. 

Yet in medicine, health care systems haven’t kept up with these changing times. 

We still use the same scales/ hours to budget clinic times as we did when I started as junior faculty over a decade ago. We have added electronic medical records, and patient portal capabilities (such as MyChart) giving access to patients but no time to physicians who now have to grapple with this additional workload and “add on significant amount of pajama time” to their day (night) to respond to this additional demand. 

Offsetting these additional demands can be done to some extent by small measures such as planning your day and calendar meticulously, saying no when things don’t align with your long-term goals, delegating at work, setting boundaries with work, family, and patients and last but not least outsourcing things without feeling guilty (including asking family/spouse/ partners to pitch in and buy those nut free chocolate chip cookies for those playdates).

However, in the end it is those most impacted by life demands - women - that must use our force to continually advocate for improved work life balance conditions that help us keep pace with the changing times and landscape of medicine to come up with innovative solutions that empower us and make us stronger and better.  

May the force be with us – XX strong!