Maternity Management

The Hospitalist. 2011 August;2011(08):

August 1, 2011 | The Hospitalist

Back to Work

Listen to Dr. Weiner

Physicians can return from maternity leave in a reduced role, but they very rarely drop out of medicine entirely, Dr. Marks says.

"[They] have put in a lot of time to get where they are," she says. "Plus, women in medicine are usually high achievers and very interested in their careers."

Yet hospitalist leaders should recognize that returning to work after having a baby is stressful. It will take some time for the returning hospitalist to develop a rhythm between her duties as a mother and a doctor.

Directors can review the hospitalist’s nonclinical roles, help with priorities, and perhaps reassign some of the responsibilities to colleagues, Dr. Marks says. With more women breastfeeding, it is important to provide a convenient space with a door that locks for women to breast-pump at work, she and the other directors say.

"The best thing in the world is to have colleagues that you trust and can rely on," Dr. Lovins says. "That way, people can help each other out in emergencies, like if someone has to take their kid to the doctor. That’s the kind of program I want to have and would want to be part of."

Lisa Ryan is a freelance writer based in New Jersey.

Don’t Forget Dad

When a baby is born to working parents, it usually is the mother who takes extended leave from her job to care for the child. But more often, men are sharing those duties and taking leave from their jobs.

As workplace culture and social perceptions regarding fatherhood evolve, the prospect of more men taking paternity leave is growing, aided by the Family and Medical Leave Act, which states people who work for any public agency or for a company with 50 or more employees are entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave within 12 months of the birth or adoption/foster placement of a child in their care.

Dr. Weiner hasn’t noticed much of an increase in paternity leave among IPC’s 1,700 employees. But the Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Marks says she has noticed a small spike, and has seen paternity-leave benefits included in hospitalist contracts. "Several of the men in our program have taken the paternity-leave option," she says. "At the Cleveland Clinic, it’s two weeks [paid leave]."

When paternity-leave requests arise, the HM director should follow HR rules and try to work with the provider to be more flexible in those first few weeks after the baby is born, Dr. Gundersen says.

"It’s part of being a team and working together," he says. "There’s a way you can make some accommodations with the group to help a new father get settled into being at home with the new baby. That’s in the spirit of ‘We’re all physicians who take care of other people, but we also take care of each other.’ "—LR