Reasonable to expect a surgeon to do this?

@RobBeckettsGiantTeeth your what?
Are you on drugs?

And if the OP was abroad on a business trip or in hospital or giving birth... who pray tell would pick up their dc then? What if the OP was at a UN conference or a pilot or a police officer scheduled to work at a royal event or a gazillion other things that would be equally impossible to leave at a moments notice.
You seem to think surgeons are somehow excused from parenting. Funnily enough what's the bet it's only male surgeons who fail to organise contingencies and rely on their women folk to pick up the slack

One more time, for the hard of thinking at the back: "Your" plural.

Quite. My managers manager wonders why we / can’t afford or have 5 days of childcare for twins. But lm pretty sure his then wife didn’t work or worked very little when their daughter was small

@RobBeckettsGiantTeeth

Wait, what? You expect him to leave in the middle of his job to collect your child?
When he's a surgeon?!
Of course he can't do that!
That would be HIS child you are referring to

Someone's surgery is however more important than most things, yes.
But completely irrelevant to the point of the post which is that he is not parenting or coming up with solutions for his inability to parent HIS child.

OP I think you’ve been bashed unfairly on this thread. Regardless of the job, when you divorce there should be a fair discussion about how childcare is going to be arranged. It sounds as though he doesn’t realistically have much flexibility and unfortunately it may come down to him paying for the kids to be in after school club rather than him collecting them on his “days”.

This, and the other answer from other surgeons on this thread (I'm a consultant, but not a surgeon) are the only ones you need to read. Your ex will have times when it would be incredibly hard for him to leave (oncalls/theatre/clinics/ward rounds), but he will have at last 1 or 2 days in the week where he will be doing admin type work, that could be timeshifted into the evening if he needed to leave to pick up an unwell kid.

Hmm so he doesn’t do any private work at all on the side?!

Not a surgeon, not married to one, but have had friends married to surgeons. Suppose it depends on his specialism, OP, but I think most surgeons have a day or two each week for paperwork and admin and following up on tests etc when it would be possible for them to be flexible. They're not all up to their elbows in peoples' innards all day, every day, or doing life-and-death ward rounds. They have clinics, sure, but those I knew of tended to be either morning or afternoon, one day a week.

I had one friend married to a senior neurosurgeon who, because his ops were long and exhausting, only used to be in theatre one day a week at most: sometimes seemed to go weeks at a time without operating.

More flexible than the average teacher, I'd say. How do teachers cope with emergency childcare?

@welshweasel pretty much has it.

he needs to find and pay for support childcare when stuff happens on “his time”.

once you have an agreement in place just DO NOT be available and do not answer phone calls or emails. It’s his problem to resolve.
if he wants to be a dick with zero relationship with his kids it’s sad but it’s on him.

I don’t think this is as black / white as others suggest. A surgeon will have a job plan which states broadly when they are operating each week (might be all day, might be part day - though part day can run over depending on their specialism). They will also have periods of semi-flexible time (usually 3 half days each week for development and admin). They may also participate on oncall rotas every few weeks. Regardless, it’s not your problem how they make this work. If you can, sit down and explain how you are feeling and ask them to consider options. Even surgeons can have some flex (or pay for proper care).

Apparently this isn't acceptable either, according to several surgeons on this thread, who refuse to have back up plans for childcare or don't believe they exist.

What’s access and custody arrangements
who evers day it is it’s upto them to sort school run wether they do it themselves or pay someone

incase of emergency have plan b not everyone can come out of work
the fact he’s a surgeon is irrelevant wife was a minimum wage carer she couldn’t of left the person she was looking after alone she would have to wait for cover
I used to get the train to work timed it wrong it could take over 2 hours to get home then from station to emergency

You knew exactly what you were getting into when you married a surgeon, end of. It can’t be a shock to you that he isn’t able to drop everything for childcare, that’s simply just the price that you pay when you have kids with someone in a high flying, demanding career. Annoying and inconvenient but a fact of life. I say this as the wife of someone in an equally intense and all encompassing job. You either accept that realistically most of the childcare demands will fall on you as the other parent, you will rely heavily on family/nannies or you just don’t have kids with them. There is no other way around it.

Laughing out loud at posters who think NHS surgeons all earn mega bucks and can afford on-call Nannies and round-the-clock Childcare

This thread reminded me of an excellent quote I heard once but sadly I can't remember who said it. It was something like "Most men expect their wives to do all the childcare but their female colleagues to do none." Ain't that the truth...

I'm sure the OP isn't suggesting he walks out mid operation dripping in blood to join sports day. It's not that. He isn't in theatre at all times. But as consultant surgeon he is responsible for a lot that's happening and needs to be available so he kind of can't really leave his post. What he should be doing is meeting his commitments another way if not in person. This could be reduced hours or paid child care but either way taking some burden off OP. Has this ever been discussed?

I'm sure the OP isn't suggesting he walks out mid operation dripping in blood to join sports day. It's not that. He isn't in theatre at all times. But as consultant surgeon he is responsible for a lot that's happening and needs to be available so he kind of can't really leave his post. What he should be doing is meeting his commitments another way if not in person. This could be reduced hours or paid child care but either way taking some burden off OP. Has this ever been discussed?

DH is a surgeon and has just walked in after leaving the house at 7.15 this morning. He can’t come out in the middle of the day when he is either operating or in clinics. However he does have a couple of sessions of SPA, for research/audit/training juniors/paperwork/CPD that he could leave or re book for another time, so its not true that your ex is unable to assist at all Mon-Fri. He just doesn’t want to.

Knowing a few surgeons, I’m pretty sure if they aren’t at work with surgery scheduled in then they have to be around/nearby on call in case of emergencies.
The wives of the surgeons I know don’t work, this appears to be so that they can raise the children/run around after them because surgeons can’t do so.

I think OP is getting a really hard time due to the way the question has been asked. Whilst a surgeon can't drop things and go to pick up kids what's stopping him from having other arrangements in place so it doesn't all fall on OP? I think you should ask Jim to rake more of a.role in arranging care OP - he doesn't ha e to do it himself if he's working.

It’s not though. As above, my husband is a surgeon, I’m also a hospital doctor. Today we picked our children up from nursery together, on Thursday he’s WFH. Yes tomorrow he has an operating list so I’ll be the one to deal with any unexpected issues but Thursday it’s all him.

OP there’s a lot of us who are actually doctors telling you that YANBU in expecting him to have more flexibility than he’s letting on.

This is why l point blank refused even after twins to give up work or go part time. We both reduced our hours slightly and used childcare. I haven’t been back long and have already been promoted. Even during my short maternity leave l refused to do everything, like l said to my husband there was no point in letting him get used to me doing everything as l was going back to work. Plus it was twins so l was a bit busy!

I’m married to an anaesthetist, and agree with a lot of this. There are some days where it would be impossible to leave, and some where colleagues could pick up the slack. And there have been days where it was impossible but a child was really ill and he has just left because there were colleagues who could help.

OP I think it’s suited your ex to allow you to be a default parent in all situations, but there will be non-clinical days in his job plan with some flexibility. Push back if you can, your work is important too.

I've worked in theatres and have to agree.theatre lists take weeks of planning, pre ops etc etc to get ready, pulling out of a day surgery is not going to be easy. But that being said emergencys happen and can't be planned for!