New mom sues medical licensing board

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Tired said:
I think that Dr. Blade28, Dr. Kimberli Cox, and myself (Dr. Tired) beg to disagree.
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I think that with the exception of LifetimeDoc, the three of us above have been the most vocal.

Maybe we're not shouting loud enough?!;)
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There are two conversations taking place on this thread at once:

A: Sophie Currier has received far too many concessions and is blatantly abusing the system. I think that virtually EVERYONE on this thread agrees on this point. Almost everyone who understands the issues (with the exception of some judge in Massachussetts) agrees with this. However, some people believe that Ms. Currier is a poor representation on women who choose to get pregnant/breastfeed during medical training, which brings us to-

B: Some women will get pregnant during medical training, and there is some significant disagreement as to what is appropriate and what should be expected. of those who do. Some posters believe that women should have the right to get pregnant and all others should have to deal with it. Others think that a pregnancy is the responsibility of the individual who gets pregnant and that while pregnany is a choice that everyone has the right to make, others shouldn't be required to pick up the slack. I don't think that anyone is saying that women shouldn't have the right to get pregnant at all.

Carry on ;)
 
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Kimberli Cox said:
C'mon...we can all multi-task can't we?:laugh:
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NO!!! You are forcing us to choose between discussing Sophie Currier, discussing pregnancy during medical education, and peeing!
 
Kimberli Cox said:
I think that with the exception of LifetimeDoc, the three of us above have been the most vocal.

Maybe we're not shouting loud enough?!;)
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No I heard you guys! I just didn't think you were unreasonable. I don't disagree with you, I understand the extra workload, how the pregnant woman/new mom should be as considerate as possible, come back as soon as she can, etc. You seem to say: "look it happens, this is why we don't like it, but there's nothing we can do about it". I remember several times that you said you couldn't be dictate that female residents not have babies though (or maybe I just remember the good parts? Sorry, pregnant brain, lots of hormones, not thinking straight).

I guess most vocal wasn't the right word. Least reasonable is what I meant. So let me rephrase: the least reasonable (from my viewpoint, of course) have been med students, not residents. And maybe from other's viewpoints, I'm one of the least reasonable too, so that confirms my theory :p
 
Miami_med said:
If there aren't any children, there won't be anyone to grow old an need hip replacements ;)
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But if parents are around to supervise their children, there will be fewer distal radii to fix.
 
By the way, I've thoroughly enjoyed this discussion, but I don't think I'll be back for a long while. Getting induced tomorrow. You have definitely made my last few weeks of pregnancy interesting!
 
Blade28 said:
Of course no one begrudes their colleague for having a baby. Of course no one really wants to screw over their colleagues (well, most of the time, anyway). Of course we don't want women to start having kids after age 35-40.But to feel entitled to take off time whenever you "happen" to become pregnant, and to not care about thrusting the extra workload onto your coresidents - well that's just wrong.
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Kimberli Cox said:
I have seen very few posts from anyone who "disdains childbearing and raising a family" but rather a flush of posts that understand that training corresponds with peak childbearing age. Most disdain comes from those who find that their colleagues plan to have children during particularly stressful residency years and seem not to care that it inconveniences and increases the work load for others. In reality, most people handle it appropriately and there is little disruption albeit for the fact that it does leave the rest with more work, more call.
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Kimberli Cox said:
I would still venture that if you have been a hard-worker, who has planned this pregnancy and done everything you can to smoothe the transition for your colleagues, it will be as well received as possible.
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This is all very reasonable to me. Couldn't find anything by Tired though :oops:. I just want to say, I understand (as much as a med student can) and that's in part why I had my kids before residency. I'm not pro-baby during residency, I'm just against expecting women to delay childbearing by 4-5-or-more years because of how the system is set up (especially since I was an older med student, and maybe a little more aware of infertility issues). I will support the reasonable hard-working resident who wants a baby, but I guarantee that the spoiled brat who has an attitude about it will be hearing from me!!! Alright, I'm off for good this time. Thanks again for the interesting discussion.
 
alwaysaangel said:
NO!!! You are forcing us to choose between discussing Sophie Currier, discussing pregnancy during medical education, and peeing!
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But if Sophie can't pump and test at the same time, how are the rest of us feeble minded people (who weren't smart enough to get an MD/PhD at Harvard) able to function with some many different conversations going on?:scared:
 
BabyBop said:
No I heard you guys! I just didn't think you were unreasonable. I don't disagree with you, I understand the extra workload, how the pregnant woman/new mom should be as considerate as possible, come back as soon as she can, etc. You seem to say: "look it happens, this is why we don't like it, but there's nothing we can do about it". I remember several times that you said you couldn't be dictate that female residents not have babies though (or maybe I just remember the good parts? Sorry, pregnant brain, lots of hormones, not thinking straight).

I guess most vocal wasn't the right word. Least reasonable is what I meant. So let me rephrase: the least reasonable (from my viewpoint, of course) have been med students, not residents. And maybe from other's viewpoints, I'm one of the least reasonable too, so that confirms my theory :p
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I hate comments like this.

And yes, I realize you were joking - this isn't necessarily directed at you specifically. Don't even refer to your hormones or pregnancy if you're going to say your thinking/functioning is impaired. You don't need to be reinforcing sexist logic. The same applies to "PMSing". Women blab about how volatile and emotionally labile they are and then get upset when someone discriminates against them based on it. Don't give people ammunition, especially when it's well-justified ammunition.
 
Northerner said:
I hate comments like this.

And yes, I realize you were joking - this isn't necessarily directed at you specifically. Don't even refer to your hormones or pregnancy if you're going to say your thinking/functioning is impaired. You don't need to be reinforcing sexist logic. The same applies to "PMSing". Women blab about how volatile and emotionally labile they are and then get upset when someone discriminates against them based on it. Don't give people ammunition, especially when it's well-justified ammunition.
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Exactly. I was listening to a talk radio show here in Jersey last week and they were actually advocating that no woman should be allowed to run for higher political office if she is pre-menopausal. Apparently, we can't be trusted due to our rampant hormones!:mad:
 
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Tired said:
I think that Dr. Blade28, Dr. Kimberli Cox, and myself (Dr. Tired) beg to disagree.
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Aren't you all surgery residents, though? I'm curious if residents in other fields feel differently. My brother who did a med/peds residency specifically told me that residency is an OK time to have babies and that tons of his female co-residents did it. He seemed to have pretty much no resentment towards them either. Just wondering if the hostility is more apparent in the more time-demanding residencies (not like they all aren't time demanding, but you know what I mean).

As for the entitled, self-indulgent woman who doesn't care about the impact of her family choices on her colleagues, somehow I doubt that occurs very frequently. In fact, I haven't heard any of the residents here sharing horror stories about working with such people.
 
Doctor Bagel said:
Aren't you all surgery residents, though? I'm curious if residents in other fields feel differently. My brother who did a med/peds residency specifically told me that residency is an OK time to have babies and that tons of his female co-residents did it. He seemed to have pretty much no resentment towards them either. Just wondering if the hostility is more apparent in the more time-demanding residencies (not like they all aren't time demanding, but you know what I mean).
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Tis true - everything from an Ortho intern (Tired) to someone in the lab as a PGY-3 (Blade) to an attending (me). I don't very much doubt that the response is different in fields with less work hours and time demands.
 
akpete said:
What gets me about this thread is the implication from many people that ALL women just don't care. Just because Currier (and I'm sure a few others) is a bitch doesn't mean that all women who get pregnant during residency completely do not care about their collegues.
...
This is a case of a few women giving all a bad rap.
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I agree. Of course it's not 100% of female residents who don't give a crap about their colleagues - far from it. But it happens.

BabyBop said:
Interestingly, the people who are most vocal about how unfair this is, how women are unreasonable, how they *have* to wait until after residency, are also med students!
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Seems like mostly residents to me.

Kimberli Cox said:
I think that with the exception of LifetimeDoc, the three of us above have been the most vocal.

Maybe we're not shouting loud enough?!;)
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And we're all surgeons. Coincidence? :)

Doctor Bagel said:
Aren't you all surgery residents, though? I'm curious if residents in other fields feel differently. My brother who did a med/peds residency specifically told me that residency is an OK time to have babies and that tons of his female co-residents did it.
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I highlighted the key difference. :)
 
I haven't had surgery rotation yet. I've mainly had the female-dominated fields (currently on pedes!) so that may have colored my opinion. Maternity leave is an expected fact of life on a pedes service but probably hurts a surgery service a lot more... I probably should keep that in mind.

At least we can all agree that Sophie Currier is a tool. :D
 
Kimberli Cox said:
But if Sophie can't pump and test at the same time, how are the rest of us feeble minded people (who weren't smart enough to get an MD/PhD at Harvard) able to function with some many different conversations going on?:scared:
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Hey, in her defense, I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night ;)
 
ForbiddenComma said:
I haven't had surgery rotation yet. I've mainly had the female-dominated fields (currently on pedes!) so that may have colored my opinion. Maternity leave is an expected fact of life on a pedes service but probably hurts a surgery service a lot more... I probably should keep that in mind.

At least we can all agree that Sophie Currier is a tool. :D
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I'm a peds resident, and I agree that maternity leave is pretty much expected. In fact, when your residency class is 28 females and 5 males, you actually have to plan for the eventuality so that everyone's schedules don't suffer. My only counter to this is that with such a heavily female-dominated residency, disaster could strike. I know of no fewer than 5-6 women in my class who are planning to get pregnant in their second year of residency. Acccording to the personal resident schedules, it's a good idea. However, if there are multiple simultaneous pregnancies, the system just can't handle it, the program wasn't set up to fuction at <80% housestaff present.

The worst part is, how can you expect a group of people to be "considerate" in the timing of of their pregancy. That's just ridiculous, it doesn't work like that. Fortunately for me, big programs like mine can do a lot of fancy shuffling, I imagine smaller programs take a much bigger hit.

Anyway, as much as I love my colleagues and the fact that I do love kids....... still doesn't mean I want to cover your month in the NICU.
 
oompaloompa said:
I'm a peds resident, and I agree that maternity leave is pretty much expected. In fact, when your residency class is 28 females and 5 males, you actually have to plan for the eventuality so that everyone's schedules don't suffer. My only counter to this is that with such a heavily female-dominated residency, disaster could strike. I know of no fewer than 5-6 women in my class who are planning to get pregnant in their second year of residency. Acccording to the personal resident schedules, it's a good idea. However, if there are multiple simultaneous pregnancies, the system just can't handle it, the program wasn't set up to fuction at <80% housestaff present.

The worst part is, how can you expect a group of people to be "considerate" in the timing of of their pregancy. That's just ridiculous, it doesn't work like that. Fortunately for me, big programs like mine can do a lot of fancy shuffling, I imagine smaller programs take a much bigger hit.

Anyway, as much as I love my colleagues and the fact that I do love kids....... still doesn't mean I want to cover your month in the NICU.
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The field-specific nature of maternity leave tolerance should be obvious at face value. That is to say, of course it's more likely/expected/tolerated in peds. The fact that they can get away with it in one specialty doesn't mean it's alright across the board.

I disagree, however, with your second point and think absolutely it's reasonable to expect a group of people to be considerate in the timing of their pregnancy. Women DO have control over whether/when they get pregnant. I absolutely think women should take into account the career and workplace ramifications of bearing children. The same point I made before I'll make now - stop giving people good reasons to discriminate against you. Make the decision to have children if/when it's appropriate. Make the decision not to blame your gender for the hassles others endure in working with you. Don't give them ammunition to discriminate against you and worse, other women who may not share your prerogative to screw other people over with your ridiculous biological clock. Think about it, if I'm a surgery program director and I have two applicants equally qualified and historically, women have a high chance of feeling entitled to burdening her co-residents with her refusal to take her workplace into account in considering pregnancy, who am I going to pick? Is it fair? No. Is it legal? No. But does it make sense? ...yeah, it does. Does it screw over other women who are just as good, just as committed, and just as hard-working as their male counterparts? Yes.

...obviously these points are all relative. People are more likely to be understanding of a 31 y.o. resident making the decision to burden her coworkers with her pregnancy than a 25 y.o. who's just doing it because....why not. People are more likely to be understanding of a woman who makes the decision to become pregnant in less call-heavy or time-demanding or more heavily-staffed residencies. People are more likely to be understanding of a woman who accidentally (i.e. made every reasonable effort within her control to postpone until appropriate), but as I said, they're less likely to trust that excuse the more it's taken advantage of.

And so women are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they decide to get pregnant during residency and it's a burden to coworkers, either: (1) they lie and claim it was accidental to avoid blame, (2) they admit it was either intentional or tantamount to intentional and take the risk of bearing the fallout. Or they could just wait, and NOT be a burden to work with.
 
oompaloompa said:
Anyway, as much as I love my colleagues and the fact that I do love kids....... still doesn't mean I want to cover your month in the NICU.
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Exactly!

Northerner said:
The same point I made before I'll make now - stop giving people good reasons to discriminate against you. Make the decision to have children if/when it's appropriate. Make the decision not to blame your gender for the hassles others endure in working with you. Don't give them ammunition to discriminate against you and worse, other women who may not share your prerogative to screw other people over with your ridiculous biological clock.
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As un-PC as this sounds, I totally agree. :thumbup:
 
Should I be able to sue my residency program or my medical school because they didn't approve time off for me to take that Caribbean cruise or because I wanted to go on that month-long expedition to Mt. Everest in the middle of my third year?
 
...or you could just go into Ortho and none of your coworkers will be biologically capable of getting pregnant...

(now waits for someone to claim an exception to that comment)


but what I really came to ask... do we know when a further appeal would be decided upon? And is Currier putting the test off further because of the board's appeal?
 
oompaloompa said:
Anyway, as much as I love my colleagues and the fact that I do love kids....... still doesn't mean I want to cover your month in the NICU.
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Wouldn't that be a non-issue if hospitals were willing to hire people to actually work? Like, actually PAY for employees? It's one thing to expect residents to work long hours in order to learn, but having a resident cover for another resident for a month....are you learning for that person as well? Hold that thought.
 
maestro1625 said:
...or you could just go into Ortho and none of your coworkers will be biologically capable of getting pregnant...

(now waits for someone to claim an exception to that comment)
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There are 2 females out of a total of 15 residents at the Ortho program here!

I think other similarly male-dominated fields include NSGY, GU and Rads, and some fellowships like CT Surg, Cards and GI.

But in all of the above mentioned fields (besides Cards), our programs here have at least one female!
 
alwaysaangel said:
Same story different site: http://bostonist.com/2007/10/03/update_ruling_i.php

Seems like good news to me! She has to put off her test another week :) And she may lose! If she waits much longer she's going to miss her start date at MGH.
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This is better than one of those dramatic cliff-hanger shows all you women follow.

I find myself fantasizing that even if she wins the case and the NBME is forced to let her take the test with all her concessions, the NBME will give everyone the finger and void her test because she cheated.

(In my head, there's a steely-stared gruff man with a "don't-****-with-me" look about him with a big red rubber stamp who voids her test and throws it carelessly on the floor.)

...but hey, I'm a dreamer.
 
Northerner said:
This is better than one of those dramatic cliff-hanger shows all you women follow.

I find myself fantasizing that even if she wins the case and the NBME is forced to let her take the test with all her concessions, the NBME will give everyone the finger and void her test because she cheated.

(In my head, there's a steely-stared gruff man with a "don't-****-with-me" look about him with a big red rubber stamp who voids her test and throws it on the floor.)

...but hey, I'm a dreamer.
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If she still had to take the very subjective standardized patient part of the exam that would probably be possible. But as it stands I think they're gonna have to let her have her scantron score. But hey - she failed the first time - she might fail again.
 
Kimberli Cox said:
I love some of the comments from the law students on the blog referenced in The Bostonist..."she should have gone to law school, working the system is a real skill!":laugh:
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This is terrible politics on her part, even if she wins. Angering all of your colleagues, advisors, mentors, etc... by refusing to work a little harder will probably hurt her prospects in the long run. At this point, all she has to hold on to is a promise of a specific residency spot at MGH. She better stay there, because there is so much negative press associated with her name, that no one else will ever hire her. It's a lot easier winning the lawsuit if you don't have to fire her, and she has successfully attached a "Don't Touch: High Voltage," label to the rest of her career. She is actually SO unpopular, that in our overly-politically correct society where no one will admit what they think about anything that might be viewed as "discrimination," she even has the people who AGREE with her positions on breast feeding openly disapproving of her.

She'd be a terrible lawyer. She'd win one case and never work in the town again.
 
The big lesson here seems to be that it's ridiculously easy to manipulate the mainstream media. All the articles/tv segments about the case seem to trumpet the "OMG buncha evil doctors are mean to breastfeeding mom!!!11 Won't someone think of the childrenz!!" part of the story, and seem to blindly repeat Currier's claim that the NBME did nothing to accommodate her (and then go on to list all the accommodations she received a paragraph later...).


The good news is, apparently the general public isn't as stupid as you'd imagine. As others have pointed out, most of the commentators on the news sites seem to see right through her.
 
Kimberli Cox said:
Looks like the State Appeals court upheld the earlier decision to give her extra break time: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21150811/
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I know we're getting to the US Supreme Court with this one, so I wish we'd just cut all the BS lower courts and get there already. I'm looking forward to getting this one outside of the NE justice system.
 
So can I sue the board for extra breaks because my knee hurts if I sit for too long? 45 minutes si not enough time for the pain to go away, so it would only be fair that I get extra breaks so I can be on equal footing with everybody that can sit for a longer period of time.

Seriously, what kind of precedent does this cause? She's just putting out a bad name for herself and other lactating mothers, and just women in general.
 
Hawaiian Bruin said:
NOBODY should be given extra time on the USMLE. NOBODY. I could give two $hits if they have ADHD. I don't care if this woman's boobs will spontaneously combust if she doesn't pump milk out of them. It's an exam to get to be a doctor for chrissake, you don't get extra bonus time.

What the f^(# is she gonna do when her pts start coding??

"Excuse me Mr. Johnson, could you go ahead and go back into a sinus rhythm for me for a little while, I have ADHD you see, and it'll take me a while longer to figure out how to get you out of this V-tach."
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That's exactly why I didn't take extra time for the MCAT. I have mild dyslexia and could have applied for extra time, but didn't because I know there is none in real life.
 
Despina said:
That's exactly why I didn't take extra time for the MCAT. I have mild dyslexia and could have applied for extra time, but didn't because I know there is none in real life.
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:thumbup: I believe that most of the mild "disabilities" that people suffer from who want to become doctors have figured out this concept. If you can't do what you need to for a qualifying test, just how are you going to do it in real life?

Goes back to my initial post about being 5 foot, 100 lbs and being interested in ortho surgery. If I really wanted to do it, I better start building up my muscles so I can do it without having to ask for help from men with muscles. Recognize your limitations and figure out how to work around them. If you can't, then figure out something else to do with your life. There are plenty of careers other than doctors.

Anyways - good for you for getting through it without working the system. Kuddos.
 
Despina said:
That's exactly why I didn't take extra time for the MCAT. I have mild dyslexia and could have applied for extra time, but didn't because I know there is none in real life.
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Sorry for posting when Blade said to let the thread die but this post caught my attention.

I have a friend with a moderate form of ADD and she's never resorted to Ritalin, extra time for tests, etc. she had a 3.9 GPA in college, was getting high scores on practice LSATs (hasn't taken it yet due to deciding whether she wants to apply and waiting for hubby to finish med school).

But the point is she does well with work etc. and has learned to work around her limitations and find ways around them without resorting to begging for things like extra time etc.
 
gujuDoc said:
But the point is she does well with work etc. and has learned to work around her limitations and find ways around them without resorting to begging for things like extra time etc.
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Arguments like this kind of creep me out. It's like telling the quadraplegic he needs to be more independent, since all the paraplegics are out there pushing their own wheelchair.
 
Tired said:
Arguments like this kind of creep me out. It's like telling the quadraplegic he needs to be more independent, since all the paraplegics are out there pushing their own wheelchair.
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:smuggrin:
 
here is the biggest question?

do you as a patient want a doctor taking care of you who is severely dyslexic and has significant ADHD???

i think that it could lead to too many potential risks for errors and misjudgements - and therefore sometimes we have to set limits?

do you think the military allows severly dyslexic and ADHD folk to fly their planes???

so why can't we as a profession say enough is enough - and let her get her MD agree with the understanding that she can go ahead and do research and never ever be involved with the clinical care of a patient...
i couldn't imagine her as my radiologist (ooops i couldn't pay attention to the other finding on the film i was looking at), pathologist (oops i thought it was neoplastic or maybe paraneoplastic), neurologist (ooops did you say multiple sclerosis or neurofibroma) anesthesiologist (ooops i misread the label on the syringe), surgeon (ooops i couldn't concentrate too well so i had to go have the surgical tech read out loud the chapter on carotid re-anastomosis and then figure out if it was the vein... or wait... the artery... or wait is that a fly on the wall?... ohhhh what was i going to make for dinner tonight - hold on that anesthesiologist is cute --- ooops - why am i in scrubs right now?....)

gimme a break - we don't allow physicians who are inebriated perform surgery... and technically alcoholism is a disability that is covered by ADA (american disabilities act)- right?
 
Tired said:
Arguments like this kind of creep me out. It's like telling the quadraplegic he needs to be more independent, since all the paraplegics are out there pushing their own wheelchair.
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It's more like saying that we shouldn't just give surgery board certification away to the quadraplegic who isn't actually physically capable of operating. I once knew a surgeon with CP that didn't affect his hands, but he couldn't really move around on his legs without support. Of course he was CAPABLE of doing the job. One overcame the disability, the other probably couldn't. Of course, we should unfortunately say to the one that couldn't that he SHOULDN'T put others at risk.
 
Miami_med said:
It's more like saying that we shouldn't just give surgery board certification away to the quadraplegic who isn't actually physically capable of operating. I once knew a surgeon with CP that didn't affect his hands, but he couldn't really move around on his legs without support. Of course he was CAPABLE of doing the job. One overcame the disability, the other probably couldn't. Of course, we should unfortunately say to the one that couldn't that he SHOULDN'T put others at risk.
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Y'all are missing my point. Of course there are certain conditions that should preclude one from going into medicine (and flying, etc).

My point was that you can't take a person with a mild impairment who is able to "work around it", and hold him/her up as an example of why others with more severe limitations should just work through it as well. A person with mild ADHD can get past it, a person with profound ADHD cannot. It's not a character flaw, it's a biologic limitation and says nothing about their character.
 
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