5 tips to start and grow a happy family during residency

Residency often coincides with the time when many young physicians would like to start families, but undertaking these two life events simultaneously can be daunting. A third-year family medicine resident with three young children recently shared her tips for making it work with minimal stress. When Chelsea Slade, MD, and her husband began talking about having kids, she was in medical school and he was in law school, and they decided it would be best to hold off on starting a family until after her residency. But as his third year of law school progressed with no job offer, their plans shifted. He agreed to stay home so they could start a family right away.“We got pregnant and then a couple weeks later, he got a job offer,” Dr. Slade said. “But we were then able to work things out with my parents, so for about nine months we lived with them. They helped take care of the baby when I went back to school, and it all went really well.” And when Dr. Slade started her residency, at McKay-Dee Family Medicine Residency at Intermountain Healthcare, in Ogden, Utah, her husband was able to work from home, so they decided to have another child, who was delivered at the end of Dr. Slade ’s intern year. That too went well, and they soon decided to have their third, who arrived eight weeks ago, at the start of Dr. Slade’s third year of residency.“Each time, we thought it would work out if we had a kid sometime in the next 18 months, and then we got pregnant right away,” Dr...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news