I will be starting medical school in two weeks and I have an 18 month old son. I know that I am going to have to lean very heavily on my husband for the next 4 years of medical school and then even harder in the 4 years of residency that will follow. I can’t imagine trying to do it with out him. I wish this woman all of the luck in the world, but man, that’s going to be one tough balancing act.

This is a tough one. While I agree with Jeanne that the columnist should not have straight out said you can’t do this, I think it is right to make the person aware of what they will be giving up. Nobody is saying that becoming a nurse is easy, but compared to medical school, which involves 4 extra years after college and then a number of year of residency/internship. After which you are saddled with outrageously large loans to pay off. If you become a general internist, your salary will be pretty small considering the loans you have. And the way medicine is today, these doctors works many, many hours a day, not only seeing patients but working on all the paperwork. If you choose a higher-paid specialty, you will have to do many additional years of internship/fellowship. At that point your his/her kids will be teenagers.

This person is obviously very smart and had very good grades, since medical school is so competitive to get into. He/she could most likely get into a good law school (or some other graduate school), and get out earlier with a much higher earning potential. (Not that this will be easy, but not quite as stressful as becoming an MD).

Although I know it sounds harsh to tell someone to give up on their dreams, when you become a parent you do have to think in a more practical way. For a single parent with 3 kids, her kids will basically be parentless for the next 8+ years.

While I do not doubt the ability of a single parent to be an adequate medical student and parent, I think the logistics of training are daunting. The first two years of medical school are relatively easy to accomodate as you go to class by day and study by night, the last two would require massive child-care support as the schedule is highly irregular and often involves being away from home for 18-36 hours at a time. Maybe if the new limited residents’ work hours trickle down, it’ll be a bit less, but still 12-24 hours. Residency hours vary markedly by specialty and program, but still will require a high-wire act just to cover the basics of childcare, much less the rest of what parenting requires. Also keep in mind that the first 4 years are unpaid (you take out huge loans to cover tuition and meager living expenses) and the last 3-8 years you only make 30-50K, which has to cover living expenses and the payments on those huge loans you just took out, not to mention 60-80 hours a week of childcare. Any single parent considering this should be supremely organized and blessed with very deep family/social supports.

I know you don’t want to hear this, but the doctor is right. And it’s not med school that’s the problem – it’s the residency. That means a 100 hour workweek minimum. I won’t say it’s impossible to do both as a single parent, but I will say it’s impossible to do both well. That’s just reality. Who is going to take care of her three children 100 hours a week or more? and how will she afford it? Doctors are well compensated, but not so well she can handle $250 K in loans plus the accumulated debt of childcare for 6 (or more) years. If you’ve made choices that have resulted in you being a single mother of three at 24, then unfortunately you have made choices that preclude a career as a physician. that’s just reality.

I’ve known med students and doctors (one who got pregnant on her own while a resident, had a baby and became a single mom with very little money and with no helpful grandparents) and agree with the advice columnist that it would be a stretch to try this as a single parent of three. BUT, I think the truly obnoxious part of the column was the suggestion that nursing would be ever so much easier. What a great example of the condescending attitude of doctors toward nurses. Nursing school would be as hard for this mom as med school–and you’re right Jeanne–it hardly commands a similar salary as a doctor, and definitely not the same respect.

In your dreams, Lady!!!
It was about five years ago, when I heard a group discussion around the community table at a local coffee shop. They were laughing about a woman who had just walked out. Something about a declared goal to loose a bunch of weight in the next year.
She was grossly obese.
“In your dreams,” one of the remaining women proclaimed to the laughter of her friends.
Sometimes that’s what it takes. A dream.
I don’t know her well, but she works out at the YMCA now, as a professional trainer, and a damn fine looking body.
Oh, yeah. She’s a single mom, with two kids.
In your dreams, Lady!!

I have seen first-hand how single parenting and med school/residency do not mix. I am a home daycare provider, and ended up caring for one little boy so much during his mother’s internship and residency, I had started to feel like I had adopted him. I started out with the attitude of “good for Ms. T, she’s following her dreams and being such a good example,” especially because my dad had been in residency while I was in elementary school. When I realized that for two straight months, this little boy had been in my care more total hours (including time spent asleep) than he had been with his mother, I began to really worry. I ended up taking him shopping when he outgrew his shoes, rather than waiting for his mom to do it. When I did wait for her to take him to buy new clothes, I would hear later that she took him out at 11pm to do it, and the poor little guy (he was three and four when I had him) would be off his schedule and cranky. When I finally did stop caring for him (his father rematerialized and became a stay-at-home dad) my neighbors asked if he had “gone back to his birth family”–They assumed I was his foster parent!

And mind you, Ms. T was a very loving, capable mom–when becoming a doctor wasn’t eating up all her time.

Follow your dreams is my advice! I have 6 children, each by a different baby daddy. (Tho’ I am not sure who the fathers are for a couple of them.)

My dream is to work on the international space station doing scientific experiments. If they could just give me a job as an astronaut, then I could achieve my dream. Also tell me the science things I need to know as I ain’t got no degree. But if you cut out the fluff from those courses I don’t think it could be so hard.

I really want this, so don’t tell me it’s not possible, it is my dream!

I have a friend who is a nurse and a single parent. She makes at least $90 K per year…..Maybe not what a doctor makes, but a nice salary. My Aunt was also able to raise two kids well on her nurse’s salary in the 70′s. How rich do people have to be???
I agree with Knitty and Chi-Laura.

My father is a single parent. When we moved to Australia, the year I turned 7, he had to re-train to get his medical credentials here, too. During that entire time, I was lucky to see my father more than once a week.

Mind, my mother is also a doctor, and she and her husband (not my father) apparently did well together while also trying to raise my half-sister. I think it’s entirely up to the individual, and to make a blanket statement that someone can’t hack medical school and parenting at the same time is ridiculous.

I am curious if jeannesager is either a Doctor or a mother of 3. If not she really has no business commenting because she can’t relate. I completed a Master’s Degree with 3 kids. It almost killed me and I had the support of a good husband. To think that she can be a good mother to 3 children and complete med. school on her own is crazy and pretty selfish. Why not follow what the author said about becoming a nurse. There are a ton of nursing jobs paying well that would allow her to work around her kid’s schedules. When the kids are more independent she can always go back to school to become an MD.

Hyerin: Master’s programs, law schools, and graduate programs are most definitely a ton of work but do not even compare to the demands of medical school. If I would have had children when I was working on my residency, they would have needed to be raised by someone else. I was barely able to care for myself properly. I really don’t think it is a female/male thing either. A single father of three should be given the same advice to find another career.