The Birth of a Return to Work Policy for New Resident Parents in Emergency Medicine

Abstract

Objective

With the rising number of female physicians, there will be more children than ever born in residency and the current system is inadequate to handle this increase in new resident parents. Residency is stressful and rigorous in isolation, let alone when pregnant or with a new child. Policies that ease these stressful transitions are generally either insufficient or do not exist. Therefore, we created a comprehensive Return to Work Policy for resident parents and piloted its implementation. Our policy aims to: 1) establish a clear, shared understanding of the regulatory and training requirements as they pertain to parental leave, 2) facilitate a smooth transition for new parents returning back to work, and 3) summarize the local and institutional resources available for both males and females during residency training.

Method

In Fall 2017, a task force was convened to draft a Return to Work Policy for New Resident Parents. The task force included 9 key stakeholders (i.e., residents, faculty, and administration) at our institution and was made up of 3 Graduate Medical Education (GME) Program Directors, a Vice Chair of Education, a Designated Institutional Official (DIO), a Chief Resident, and 3 members of our academic department's Faculty Affairs Committee. The task force was selected because of individual expertise in gender equity issues, mentorship of resident parents, GME, and departmental administration.

Results

After development, the policy was piloted from November 2017 to June 2018. Our pilot implementation period included 7 new resident parents. All of these residents received schedules that met the return to work scheduling terms of our Return to Work Policy including no overnight shifts, no sick call, no more than 3 shifts in a row. Of equal importance, throughout our pilot, the emergency department schedules at all of our clinical sites remained fully staffed and our sick call pool was unaffected.

Conclusion

Our Return to Work Policy for New Resident Parents provides a comprehensive guide to training requirements and family leave policies, an overview of available resources, and a scheduling framework that makes for a smooth transition back to clinical duties.

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