Doctors’ age at domestic partnership and parenthood: cohort studies

I read with interest the paper by Goldacre et al. ¹

As a female surgeon, the finding in Table 5 that 74% of general practitioners had children by the age of 35 compared with 41% in female surgeons was particularly striking. The authors also concluded that women were rejecting certain specialties on their perception that they were incompatible with having a family, with many more in the female GPs group (n = 2267) than the female surgeon group (n = 313).

It should be noted that these cohort studies are from an era when surgical training was exceptionally intense with trainee-led operating at all hours considered normal, whereas surgical training is more similar to other specialties in intensity now.

It would be unfortunate if female medical graduates were deterred from entering surgical specialties because of a perception that surgical careers are not suited to family life. I would agree with the authors that further work is needed to determine whether doctors decide not to have children because of their career.

Women in Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons (England) consider that female doctors interested in pursuing a surgical career should not think that the roles of female surgeon and mother are incompatible. I am a Consultant Orthopaedic surgeon, mother to three children, and wife to a Hospital Consultant. The Women in Surgery Group at the Royal College of Surgeons (England) has produced a ‘Pregnancy and Maternity’ leaflet which is available at http://surgicalcareers.rcseng.ac.uk/documents/Pregnancypdf