A National Survey of Pregnancy and Parenthood among Nephrology Trainees

What is it about?

National and international policies outlining parental leave for physician trainees are inconsistent. Pregnant physician trainees may be at higher risk of pregnancy complications in part, due to nontraditional work hours. In addition, physician trainees face barriers in meeting their breastfeeding goals and in finding childcare often due to lack of necessary accommodations. To our knowledge, this is the first study of pregnancy accommodations and complications, parental leave, breastfeeding accommodations, and childcare among nephrology fellows. We found that nephrology fellows are largely unaware of parental leave policies and the availability of pregnancy, lactation and childcare accommodations. We note areas that could be improved. While our data was collected amongst national nephrology fellows, we present findings that are indicative of systemic medical training issues.

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