Partner, parent, physician, professor: Having it all requires sacrifice, boundaries

Theresa Bingemann, MD, FACAAI, FAAAAI, found a role that was perfect for her. Combining her passion for learning and teaching, the program director of University of Rochester’s Allergy and Immunology Fellowship was a dream career.

However, her journey to this job, which she has been in since 2020, was not easy. Juggling her and her husband’s unpredictable schedules as physicians along with caring for their three sons and her aging mother posed unique and unexpected challenges for Bingemann. She had to make sacrifices and draw boundaries early in her career to make things work.

Making sacrifices

Making career decisions was not easy for Bingemann when she was finishing medical school because her career was not the only one she had to think about. Her husband graduated from medical school a year before her, so they did not have the option to match as a couple.

“He ended up going to New York City thinking I would have a lot of options,” Bingemann said. “I decided I wanted to do the combined residency in internal medicine and pediatrics, and there was one program in the city I wanted to go to, which meant I was competing for four spots.”

Her husband encouraged her to apply outside of the city because he did not want her options to be too limited, even if it meant they would have to live apart.

“In the end, I was really fortunate that I ended up matching in the same program my husband was in,” Bingemann said, “but I understood the challenge when you have two people on a different schedule, and you are in a match that is binding.”

Bingemann and her husband lived in Manhattan for 4 years while they completed their residencies at Mount Sinai. When Bingemann decided she wanted to pursue allergy and immunology, she and her husband moved to Minnesota where she completed her fellowship at Mayo Clinic. Bingemann loved working at Mayo Clinic, and her co-fellows became some of her closest friends, many of whom she still spends time with today.

“My husband left the job he loved in New York and took a job at Mayo Clinic that he also loved,” she said. “Initially we were hoping to stay, but they did not have a position for me, so we decided to leave.”

The couple decided Bingemann’s husband should choose their next venture having left his last job so Bingemann could pursue her fellowship. He chose Rochester, New York, which was closer to family and had multiple opportunities for each of them.

Bingemann had to decide between two jobs: One as a clinician at Rochester Regional Health, or one in the faculty at University of Rochester. Ultimately, she chose Rochester Regional Health, which provided the stability and consistency she needed as a parent with two young children at the time.

Bingemann enjoyed working with patients, but she still felt drawn toward academia due to her love of learning and teaching.

Solving mysteries

In medical school, before Bingemann had settled on allergy and immunology, she wanted to be a forensic pathologist.

“I liked solving that mystery, figuring out what was going on,” she said. “I feel like allergy and immunology is a lot like that — someone comes in, their asthma is flaring, and you are trying to figure out what is causing the flare and what is the barrier to them feeling better.”

During her residency, Bingemann took an allergy and immunology elective, and she realized how much she enjoyed the specialty.

“My husband said he never saw me as happy as I was when I came back from those Fridays at the allergist’s office,” she said.

Bingemann also loves learning and collaborating with others, which inspired her to work with fellows once she became an attending. While working at Rochester Regional Health, she attended weekly seminars for allergy and immunology fellows, and invited fellows to rotate at her clinic.

“It was really fun,” she said. “It was my way of combining the things that I enjoyed.”

After 13 years at her clinic, Bingemann was offered a chance to interview for a position at University of Rochester as the allergy and immunology fellowship program director. Soon after, Bingemann attended a national allergy and immunology meeting where she met up with her co-fellows from Mayo Clinic. She was unsure about the new position — she did not want to leave her patients, and she was worried about the work-life balance.

“I thought I would throw it out there to them and ask what they thought,” Bingemann said. “They all looked at me and said, ‘This job was designed for you, why would you not interview?’”

In 2020, Bingemann stepped into the role as program director, and she is extremely glad she did. She said she loves working with fellows and other faculty members, and she has been able to incorporate some of her interests, such as physician wellness, into the curriculum. She also gets to continue solving mysteries with her students.

“A fellow and I had a very complicated hospital consult and, frankly, I did not 100% know what to do,” Bingemann said. “The two of us sat in the office and went through a bunch of articles, and I phoned some friends to make sure they thought we were not missing anything. It was really nice to work through that with her, and we both learned together.”

Spending time on what is most important

Pursuing a career with a manageable work-life balance was always important to Bingemann, but she still had to learn how to strike that balance and prioritize her family’s needs along the way.

When her family relocated to Rochester, she had to deal with multiple challenges outside of choosing a job. Her mother had dementia and needed full-time assistance, plus Bingemann had a 2-year-old and a newborn.

“My husband was going to get to do this job he wanted, which was quite demanding, and it was only fair that he got to do that,” Bingemann said. “But it was hard balancing those things.”

Beyond caring for her mother, two of Bingemann’s eventual three children were diagnosed with skeletal dysplasia, which required surgical treatment.

“There were times where I felt like we were barely keeping it together,” Bingemann said. “During those times, I needed to recognize that I needed help and to take it when it was offered.”

She also realized she had to give up doing things that were not essential. When her children were young, Bingemann stopped giving talks and engaging in the academic activities she enjoyed, because her focus and energy was needed by her sons.

After 1 year at Rochester Regional Health, she reduced her schedule to 3 days per week so she could focus on her kids and home responsibilities. As her children got older and began attending school and daycare, Bingemann and her husband hired an au pair to pick the kids up from school, complete some household chores and get dinner started for the family, which Bingemann said allowed her to spend more time with her boys.

“What I have realized through the years is that you have to figure out what is most important to you, and make sure you are spending your time on those things,” she said.