H. G. Lyu1, R. E. Scully1, J. S. Davids2, N. Melnitchouk1 1Brigham And Women’s Hospital,Surgery,Boston, MA, USA 2University Of Massachusetts Medical School,Surgery,Worcester, MA, USA
Introduction: Despite an increase in women in medicine, there are disproportionately few in academia and leadership positions. We hypothesized that early career physician mothers face greater burnout and career dissatisfaction due to unequal domestic responsibilities.
Methods: Data from 2,360 U.S. physician mothers were gathered via an anonymous, IRB-approved online survey. Univariate analysis was performed using Chi-squared tests.
Results: The majority of respondents (97.7%) were married or partnered. Physician mothers reported having sole responsibility for the majority of domestic needs, compared to their significant other, including routine childcare plans (56.8% vs 12.0%), back-up childcare plans (44.0% vs 26.7%), cooking (43.0% vs 25.6%), groceries (45.1% vs 24.7%), shopping for clothing (85.0% vs 2.9%), vacation planning (50.0% vs 15.6%), helping with homework (21.6% vs 3.6%), and laundry (46.6% vs 14.1%). By contrast, physician mothers reported that their significant others were more likely than them to have sole responsibility for home repairs (62.7% vs 12.0%), finances (45.7% vs 30.0%), and automobile maintenance (57.4% vs 11.3%). Compared to physician mothers whose significant other was a stay-at-home parent, those whose significant other was a physician were significantly more likely to be solely responsible for routine child care plans, (72.5%% vs 8.9%, p<0.001); this was even more pronounced for the subset with surgeon spouses, (80.8% vs 8.9%, p<0.001). Female physicians who report having an unsupportive significant other are more likely than those with supportive significant others to report burnout or desire to switch careers (8.3% vs 4.2%, p<0.001).
Conclusions: Female physicians continue to carry more domestic responsibility than their significant others, even when they are both physicians. Increased domestic responsibility correlated with having an unsupportive partner, as well as a desire to switch to a less demanding career or specialty.