Flexible Return to Work Scheduling is Essential for All New Parents
Amanda Hurtig
Today we are excited to share FemInEM’s next model workplace policy–Sustainable Return to Work Scheduling. This policy recognizes that having a newborn at home turns your world upside down, and adding a full emergency medicine schedule on top of that can lead to untenable chaos, and ultimately burnout. To combat this reality and make the return to our profession more sustainable, this policy sets out a series of provisions that Departments can adopt that lead to a more gradual return to work. One of the unique aspects of this policy is that it is intended to be utilized by all emergency physicians who expand their family, regardless of gender or how a family is grown. This means new moms and dads, biological parents and adoptive parents, birthing and non-birthing parents should all be eligible for and benefit from this policy. To contextualize the difference a return to work policy can make, Amanda Hurtig shares what it was like supporting a family while her husband returned to the Emergency Department without, and then with, a gradual return to work.
Being a non-physician married to a physician, especially a resident, can be a great test of your resilience and independence. You end up running the household, being the emotional support, and picking up skills like re-tiling a bathroom floor when there’s a leak and your partner has to leave for a 6am shift. I’ve trapped rats, replaced rotted subflooring, and installed a garbage disposal. You do what you have to do to keep things going, and I’m proud of what I’m now capable of handling. There’s usually a way to solve a problem, something you can figure out, or someone you can call for help.
But a newborn doesn’t work that way. There’s no Bob Vila episode that covers getting out of bed after a C-section, no one to call at 2am when you’re running on nothing and trying to figure out a tiny human who just turned your life upside down. When our son was born via emergency C-section, my husband went back to work the same day. I had been extubated for a few hours before he had to leave. That’s just what residency looked like for us at the time, and we both understood that. Understanding something didn’t make it easy, and it didn’t fill the space where my partner was supposed to be.
Four and a half years later, when our daughter was born and my husband was about 18 months into his attending career, things were completely different. While he was only able to take a week off before returning to work, he returned to a much lighter schedule. He did not work night shifts, and only had short stretches of shifts at a time. I watched him experience the newborn stage as if it was all new. I realized that, for him, it really was. At one point, he told me he didn’t remember any of this with our son. He didn’t mean he forgot; he meant he missed it altogether.
Physicians give up a big part of their lives to training, and most know what they’re signing up for in the department and the journal clubs and the sim labs. But they are not alone in these sacrifices–there are partners at home also making sacrifices. I don’t think we had any idea how much he would miss in our personal lives or how much it would impact my experience as a new mother. When the birthing partner has to go through one of the hardest experiences of their life mostly alone, and the non-birthing partner misses a time that never comes back, it affects the whole family forever. Paid parental leave is crucial for all new parents, but it doesn’t stop there. When you return to work, your newborn doesn’t suddenly stop being a newborn. Having policies that ease the transition back to work, whether you are the parent that just gave birth or not, means that you can be a supportive partner at home and be present for these critical moments in your child’s life.
my amazing SIL! 💗💗