Institutions should ‘apply an equity lens’ to physicians with caregiver duties
Balancing the responsibilities of being both a caregiver and a health care professional requires flexibility, especially considering the way the world has changed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vineet M. Arora, MD, MAPP, highlighted the ways in which parents in the medical field faced greater complications during the pandemic, such as managing school closings and finding child care, along with the benefits that came from needing to create alternative systems at work.
“Being a parent of young children has given me a great perspective in the workplace,” Arora said in an interview with Healio. She continued that, during the pandemic and with schools being out, she noticed a drive to “get back to in-person everything,” which she supports but is worried about leaving some advances behind.
Arora is an academic hospitalist who became dean for medical education at University of Chicago this year with years of clinical experience.
“One thing that we can’t leave behind is applying an equity lens to how people’s lives have changed and using the pandemic to understand that some people need flexibility in their jobs,” she said.
Arora said that, as a leader in academic medicine, there is an expectation about the 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule with work still spilling over to home life at night.
Institutions can ‘be part of the team’
There are many obstacles that all parents face, regardless of profession, but sharing unique experiences can lead to a better understanding of how to best build or rebuild systems and culture in the workplace.
“I have been extraordinarily privileged in that I had my kids late,” Arora said. “I’m also disadvantaged in that I had my kids late, as it took a lot of time to have them and a lot of medical science and support to have my children.”
Arora added that she is also fortunate to be in a place that she can support a nanny, but many students and residents do not have that option because of their educational debt and/or early career salaries.
“That makes me think carefully about what institutions can do to be part of the team, whether it be on-site day care or helping with a discount to day care if you can’t host it on site,” Arora said. “What are some of the ways in which programs and institutions can help us, especially for those who are most junior?”
Fertility also is a big issue, Arora said, especially for anyone going into a specialty with a long training time.
“It’s a long road to become a fellowship-trained specialist,” she said. “It’s about 10 years of medical training after college, and those years are going to overlap with your reproductive cycle.”
Arora noted that, if a woman delays having children, she may need medical assistance like in vitro fertilization.
“A lot of times, people don’t understand that it’s very frequent monitoring and medical exams,” she said. “There’s a lot of cost associated with it as well. Programs and institutions can take a more active role in supporting people through that.”
Growing an understanding system
It is often the case that disparities women face in the workplace stem from superiors and colleagues having not lived the same life experiences or faced the same expectations. This is true from junior staff up to leadership.
Arora said that she also feels incredibly lucky to have had very supportive employers, but she knows many women who have faced challenges during training while balancing having children.
“The major challenge that I’ve faced as a leader is this implicit expectation that your kids are grown or that you’re able to devote a lot of your off time to work,” Arora said. “There are different ways to juggle that. Some people would say, ‘You’re the leader, you can change that.’ I would say that, unfortunately, the culture and the expectations are such that some things can be changed but others are part of the culture. That’s why it’s important to work toward changing everyone’s expectations and the culture so more people, especially women, can make it into leadership positions.”
For more information:
Vineet M. Arora, MD, MAPP, can be reached at varora@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu.
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Healio Interview
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