How can paid family leave help address inequity in medicine?
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In this At Issue, Grace C. Wright, MD, PhD, founder and president of the Association of Women in Rheumatology and owner and president of Grace C. Wright, MD, PC, discusses how paid family leave can help address the bias experienced by health care providers.
We are taught to advocate for our patients, but this must extend to when we, the health care providers, become the patient.
Source: Adobe Stock.
Paid family leave sits within the broader discussion of equity for those who choose to have or parent children. For too long, the work of childbearing, and child-rearing, has been shouldered by the mother, and the ramifications extend beyond the postpartum period. The “cost” of lost time due to illness, schooling and the extracurricular activity of the child is additive and often persistent.
This broader discussion of equity must be addressed because the negative consequences for women in medicine can persist for a lifetime and throughout their career. The well-documented drop-off among women in higher positions of leadership is often tagged to “her time away to raise children,” or the idea that she might take time off to have children. The economic consequence is experienced by many as the “gender pay gap,” and adds to the career consequence of the “glass ceiling.”
Correcting this requires structural change on multiple levels but normalizing paid family leave is one step toward reducing this inequity.
Paternal leave is a more recent acknowledgment of the rights and desires of the non-childbearing parent to participate in the care of their child. As Debra F. Weinstein, MD, so aptly stated in the cover story, “Parental leave needs to apply to all parents, regardless of gender and whether or not a parent is the primary caregiver, for all of the reasons that parental leave is important.”
Normalizing paternal leave has major potential impacts on many levels: Removing gender bias in child care, erasing the stigma of paid time after childbirth and closing the gap in promotions driven by the biases surrounding childbearing, to name a few.
However, equitable outcomes also require that paths are created to incorporate the individual following their paid family leave. Trainees need to “catch up” on learning, and junior faculty may need assistance re-entering the clinical and research promotion tracks. Private practice practitioners may face economic burdens created by accrued overhead costs during the time away, which must be proactively managed.
Failure to do so runs the risk of making paid family leave an unattainable reality for many who have dedicated their lives to caring for others but are then unable to care for themselves and their offspring when they most need it.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fact that inequity comes in many shapes and forms. Recognizing the humanity within our health care heroes is the first step toward addressing the bias experienced by many in health care, from student to retiree. Paid family leave is one important step forward on this path to equity.
Click here to read the Cover Story, "Health care industry struggles to keep pace with ‘tectonic shift’ in paid family leave."
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