So, are you committed to medicine — or your baby?

"As I approach this last stretch of residency, still entrenched in the rigors of training and the intensity of raising three young children under five years old, I am in a unique position of being able to reflect on the years and look ahead at what I want to build at the same time. It has been a lonely, emotional, seemingly endless journey at times.

We mothers and doctors are barraged with messages that we do not belong here, straddling both roles. The work of dismantling these messages will be impossible for any single person, but cumulatively we can. And for future young women who are budding doctors and hopeful mothers, I hope their search for answers and advice results in them finding a large community of support and belongingness.

And I will continue my part to advocate, to mentor, to fight this cycle of self-blame that our training system perpetuates, to continually question these messages of what priorities 'belong' in medicine, until finally, we expand this radius of belonging. Despite all that I have encountered, my spirit is not broken. I have work to do."

Eunice Stallman is a psychiatry resident.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "So, are you committed to medicine — or your baby?" (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/07/so-are-you-committed-to-medicine-or-your-baby.html)