How are pregnant women treated by med schools?

[premedrocks]

If a women decides to get pregnant during med school or residency is she given any special attention such as longer breaks during the boards? or do they consider it irresponsible on the woman's part?

i know this case where a woman who had a 7 week old baby was working towards her PHDMD and had to take a 9 hour exam with a total of 45 minutes of break time. in order to have certain accomidations during an exam you have to have a disability, and being pregnant or having a small baby is not considered a disablity because it is a temporary condition. she had a lawyer who sued the board but he did not win.

I want to know what kinds of rights a pregnant woman or one with a baby has in medical school.

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[Perrotfish]

I don't believe you have any 'rights' in the sense that you have legal recourse if they shoot you down, but in general med schools are very accomodating places. They would probably be willing to change your schedule around, give you easy rotations during your later trimesters, etc. You could probably even take a year off, if you wanted to, to get through it.

As for the boards... I've never looked into it but if they cared I'd be shocked. They're uber standardized. The most probable best case scenario would be that your school would let you put of passing the boards until you had delivered and recovered so that you wouldn't need the extra breaks in the first place.

 

[thechad]

i know this case where a woman who had a 7 week old baby was working towards her PHDMD and had to take a 9 hour exam with a total of 45 minutes of break time. in order to have certain accomidations during an exam you have to have a disability, and being pregnant or having a small baby is not considered a disablity because it is a temporary condition. she had a lawyer who sued the board but he did not win.

She didn't want to spend the 20 bucks and get a babysitter but she would spends thousands to sue? I don't think your friend is very smart.

I've never heard of a pregnant woman getting special attention...what kind of attention do you want/expect?

I know most jobs have maternity leave, but I don't know about med school. I think most rotations (if not all) have mandatory attendance (unless you are hospitalized...in their hospital of course).

 

[HigHal320]

I'm not sure about the board but at my school students can opt to do med school in 5 yrs (splitting the first two years into three years). Not a real accommodation to students with needs but more an option because it's open to everyone.

 

[premedrocks]

She didn't want to spend the 20 bucks and get a babysitter but she would spends thousands to sue? I don't think your friend is very smart.

I've never heard of a pregnant woman getting special attention...what kind of attention do you want/expect?

I know most jobs have maternity leave, but I don't know about med school. I think most rotations (if not all) have mandatory attendance (unless you are hospitalized...in their hospital of course).

this is not a friend of mine, and this women is not stupid she went to Harvard Med School. here are the details of the case

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache...eak+time+during+her"&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

 

[Kedan]

There are three pregnant women in my class right now (very weird I know) and they've gotten some "special" treatment, if you can call it that. They were able to switch around their rotations and delay some exams. Of course it helps that they're clinical students so the exams run every 5 weeks or whatever. If you delay an exam in pre-clin then you'll have to do it the next time it runs...a year later and there's no moving on till then so basically you've taken a year off. Beyond that I don't know that you can expect any real special treatment. At my school they have to sit the exam in the same time period as everybody else and there are no extra breaks (which wouldn't be fair). I'm not in the US so I don't know about boards.

 

[Kedan]

this is not a friend of mine, and this women is not stupid she went to Harvard Med School. here are the details of the case

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache...eak+time+during+her"&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Um so why didn't she express the breast milk ahead of time? Breast milk can be stored in a refrigerator for a couple days and the exam is only 9 hours (edit: that is to say I don't expect that she's going to be in debilitating pain after 9 hours). It's not like she was being locked away for months. I'm just saying.

 

[premedrocks]

Um so why didn't she express the breast milk ahead of time? Breast milk can be stored in a refrigerator for a couple days and the exam is only 9 hours (edit: that is to say I don't expect that she's going to be in debilitating pain after 9 hours). It's not like she was being locked away for months. I'm just saying.

it seems like she was testing how far the board will go in terms of providing accommodations. it says that she received accommodations for her ADHD and dyslexia and now she wants more accommodations for her baby.

 

[Kedan]

But then she sued them.

 

[Perrotfish]

...

 

[SoCuteMD]

If a women decides to get pregnant during med school or residency is she given any special attention such as longer breaks during the boards? or do they consider it irresponsible on the woman's part?

i know this case where a woman who had a 7 week old baby was working towards her PHDMD and had to take a 9 hour exam with a total of 45 minutes of break time. in order to have certain accomidations during an exam you have to have a disability, and being pregnant or having a small baby is not considered a disablity because it is a temporary condition. she had a lawyer who sued the board but he did not win.

I want to know what kinds of rights a pregnant woman or one with a baby has in medical school.

For what it's worth, this woman already HAD special accomodations (this was all over the papers several years ago). She got to take the exam over a period of two days, I believe, because she got extra time.

In any case, my friend gave birth and two months later was working 10 hour shifts and did not pump or feed in those ten hours even though she was breastfeeding her son. She said it was a little painful towards the end of 10 hours, but she was fine.

 

[cpants]

If a women decides to get pregnant during med school or residency is she given any special attention such as longer breaks during the boards? or do they consider it irresponsible on the woman's part?

i know this case where a woman who had a 7 week old baby was working towards her PHDMD and had to take a 9 hour exam with a total of 45 minutes of break time. in order to have certain accomidations during an exam you have to have a disability, and being pregnant or having a small baby is not considered a disablity because it is a temporary condition. she had a lawyer who sued the board but he did not win.

I want to know what kinds of rights a pregnant woman or one with a baby has in medical school.

I don't know what special rights you think a pregnant woman deserves. The school will probably make some accommodation for you in terms of scheduling and taking more time to complete school, but you should still have to pass the same exams in the same time periods. The reason pregnancy isn't considered a disability is because it ISN'T a disability. Exams may be inconvenient for you. They may be uncomfortable. That's your problem. Your thinking skills and handwriting should still work the same. If you are worried about kids interfering with med school, I suggest some family planning.

 

[SoCuteMD]

Also, might I add, she was taking her Step 2 mighty late if she was supposed to be starting internship "in the fall." She was WAY off cycle in terms of doing things in a timely manner. Also, she had, um, 9 MONTHS worth of warning that she was going to be giving birth. She didn't HAVE to take the exam when she was 8 months pregnant. She could have taken it at 3 or 4 months. But then she would have had to pee all the time, and would have needed extra "pee breaks" I guess.

 

[xscpx]

This is such crap. She made the decision to have a baby. She made the decision to breastfeed. She made the decision not to pump before hand and hire a baby sitter. Sounds like she is the idiot here. She made stupid choices, she deserves no accommodations. Accommodations are for thing that people have no control over (i.e. a disability, learning difficulty, etc) not for some crazy chick who can't manage her time and life wisely. Women like her are what gives a bad rap to the rest of us.

 

[Tigerz_Fan]

I know most jobs have maternity leave, but I don't know about med school. I think most rotations (if not all) have mandatory attendance (unless you are hospitalized...in their hospital of course).[/QUOTE]

It is a federal mandate that employees are granted maternity/paternity leave and still have a job to return to. It may not be paid leave, and the employee may have to fill out FMLA forms, but they cannot fire the employee.