If you’re married to a surgeon please tell me if you think I’m being unfair?

Training years are hard though and unfortunately fall during the most optimum baby making years !

My husband loves his job as an anaethetist but my god those FRCA exams 😮‍💨 I know all specialty exams are hard but wow I'm a complete FRCA widow these days

Yuck. What awful advice.

Its actually really good for kids actually as its a sessional job, each day is completed and the pt is fine or in icu so don't have the continuity of care that ward drs need. Sooo easy to go part time, I'm in a minority now at not being part time, nearly everyone is 80% full time as thst drops you to an average of 40h a week. But yeah we aren't gonna have the work life balance of derm, but I still think it's way more fun

Every career in medicine/surgery is do able by a woman- it might require you to train differently - not standard route, take a little longer and be more flexible in some aspects of your training - only men stoop to the age old - not suitable for women comments.

Your daughter was advised by a dinosaur. I knew before I got to the word "he" that it would be a man giving that advice.

As a consultant, (although not an anaesthetist) the working pattern is far better than when you are a trainee. As anaesthetic depts are usually very large, although as a consultant , you are far more likely to be called/have to attend overnight, the frequency is much less than when you are a registrar, and you don't do runs of nights like a registrar does - you won't be doing Monday-Thursday nights, you'll do one of those nights, and have appropriate arrangements for time off immediately afterwards. In addition, the flip side of doing nights on call mean that you can reach your working week total hours pretty quickly so you will often have 1 or 2 days off in the week, so much more ability to do pick ups/spend time with the kids than a 9-5 Monday-Friday work pattern, where you will need to book time off for pick ups/events etc all the time (leaving aside the fact that even though the official hours will be 9-5, all consultants do more than that).

Less than full time training is a thing as well, and will always be given for childcare reasons.

If I were asked, I would simply discuss anaesthetics or any specialty in trems of what you wanted your working life to look like. Some people would never want to be called/called in overnight even if they don't have children, so specialties like anaesethetics/ED would not be a good fit for them. Some people would hate doing lots of sitting in clinics, so specialties like neurology would be a bad fit. Some people want to do lots of procedures, so surgery or some of the more procedural medical specialties would be a better fit. Plus, some specialties like GP that don't do nights once they have completed training unless they choose too, have other stresses that many people would find intolerable.

Clearly some of those things are easier if you don't have children, but the blanket idea that if you have children you should be steered away from some specialties is just rubbish.

@TrainGame

They aren't that cushy I'm currently rostered a 69h week and I'm working 6 out of 7 days!

Our job is "exciting" in different ways, IMHO doing the same surgery day in day out is boring.

It's def not the most oversubscribed, we are in a workforce crisis and expected to have 11k deficit in consultants by 2040, its just we are the biggest of all hospital specialities

Indeed. Dermatologists were considered a bit of a joke back in the day when my DF was a doctor. He was a general surgeon so lots of alpha aura and saving the day. Not to make light of it, he saved a lot of lives and did thousands of operations, on call in the night often, but he wasn't around much when I was growing up. I'd have preferred him to be a dermatologist in all honesty. It sounds like a good option. I will be advising my DD to go for this possibly, should she become one herself.

Also, once you reach consultant as an anaesthetist it seems like you get more clear-cut hours? My friend was doing very reasonable hours from what I could tell once she became a consultant. But maybe things have changed. This was some years ago now.

My DD had ambitions to be an anaesthetist, advice from a senior doctor was that he wouldn't recommend it for a woman looking to have children.
He did suggest Dermatology for work-life balance due to the unlikeliness of a 3am emergency.

I understand anaesthetics is one of the most over-subscribed specialties within the NHS.

Good hours may be one of the reasons?! I used to know one a few years ago, a Mum but she moved away and she always seemed to have reasonable hours.

But then I have heard also that some say it is not as exciting as surgery. I know which I'd choose, I'd rather have a normal life, thank you very much!

This is really interesting, thank you for posting and explaining a bit more about anaesthetics because my son has a classmate whose Dad is an anaesthetist (not sure if he’s a Consultant yet) and I see him around at school all the time and he’s very active on the class WhatsApp. I always wondered how he managed to do so many school runs and be so involved in his children’s lives (I am a lawyer and his wife is in finance, I sometimes feel like he’s more involved than she and I are!)

We also had in an old class a Mum who was genuinely a brain surgeon. She had a nanny and wasn’t around much, though always lovely when I did speak to her.

Exactly - if you want a consultancy. That's what I said.

Some medical specialties you do have to do phds. Many surgical fields and cardiology you pretty much have to if you want a consultant

Your lifestyle is unreasonable. You cannot really be married to someone with a highly focused job, have a kid, run a home, be his life PA and also work full-time!

He does acknowledge you need time to yourself at the weekends. I would suspect he would rather you gave up your job and focused on more on being Nanny/Cook/Housekeeper/PA during the day. At least whilst your kid is so small.

I'd assume any doctor working in an NHS hospital would be working long hours. That he is spending a full day with his child to give you a good chunk of child free time is good for everyone.

At this time, I would be considering buying in help as the most economical and feasible option. Could your child attend nursery or playgroup? Could you get a child minder for a few hours so you can get on with work? Could you get a cleaner? I apologise if I'm making assumptions that you can afford that with 2 decent incomes.

I too am always taken aback that here in 2025 there are people, including surgeons, who think having children shouldn’t affect their lives. They’ve often made actual vows to their wives, to be there for them through thick and thin, though illness and health, which were just lies, it turns out when they said we should start a family to their wives they meant you should provide me with a family and a home life. Sure you can have a job, but single mums manage both so can you.

I think this applies to a lot of professionals.
Although I earn low six-figures, fifty years ago, the income from doing my job would have paid for a large house, public school for two or three children and help around the house.
While I don't want/need those extras, incomes were proportionately 3 or 4 times what they are now.
Growing up, the few surgeons I knew of drove newish Rolls-Royces.

I work with a really good group of colleagues and all my male colleagues who have children seem to be pretty hands on with their children. However I’ve worked with male surgeons in the past who are known to stay at work until they know bath & bedtime are done which I haven’t seen amongst female surgeons myself, although someone has further up the thread. I don’t know if it’s specific to surgeons though, we just have a more robust excuse to fall back on!

Thank God we have dedicated surgeons in the UK that want to out so much in to their jobs. Imagine if they all had to leave for the school run or do the weekly shop at a specific time. I'm not sure the person on the operating table would be in such agreement. Surely you knew his work load wouldn't change just because a child has entered the house, can you not give up work to look after the child then go back when they are at school?

I'm always a little bit taken aback that people have children and want to work full time thinking there will be no impact on their lives. I don't know any household where one person doesn't do more than the other, and this is predominantly the bulk of the work landing on the woman. I just think we are able to multi-task easier than, men, can tune in to listening to the children, whilst doing other things, where as men pretty much have tunnel vision and can only focus on one thing at a time.
Women are wired differently, the book women are from Venus and men are from Mars is a great read. I just can't get worked up about these things, but maybe that's because I like the house to be kept the way I like it, and that comes from being a single parent years ago.

@Worklifewhat I think most people appreciate that last minute cancellations can happen. The issue is that when one is notified the admin staff rarely apologise and usually don't give a reason. It's even worse when one arrives at the clinic at 11am and there's a notice up because nobody bothered to call at 8.30/9am.

It seems in those circumstances that whilst the public is expected to arrive, on time, there is no reciprocity when the issue lies with the other side. Patient's time is valuable too but there is rarely any respect for it.

I used to work in this area, the ones I knew were part time for the NHS BUT then did private work in their non NHS hours, so effectively still full time.

This is really insightful, thanks.

Do you feel there is a difference of attitude between your male colleagues and female colleagues?

What comes over is that you're struggling as a mum. There's nothing in your posts- few as they are- about enjoying being with your daughter. It comes over as if she's an inconvenience who disturbs your working day.

Maybe the reality of being a mum is not what you expected?

You can't have it all ways. You're working full time, your DD is at nursery full time, so you aren't doing much childcare anyway.

You want your H to provide support by being around more.

He can't be. That's the simple fact. Unless he changes his job.

Clearly at the end of a long day he's shattered when he comes home and his mind might still be on work. Although he ought to ask how your day's been - are you asking him about his?

If you are struggling with your DD (who you say us difficult at the moment) can you find support with other mums locally through hobbies?

Can you and your H have a proper conversation about this? Maybe you need to work part time? You've made choices along the way but maybe those choices need reassessing?

@KM123456 OP didn’t ask for a woman married to a surgeon-just is anyone married to a surgeon so maybe get your OH to reply 😆 But everything you say is right. The place to start is to have a good conversation about what things will look like-a bit after the horse has bolted here, but we had the conversation before we had DC 1; then had ongoing conversations before numbers 2&3. But being open and honest is a good start.
i don’t think OP is happy fullstop. As you say-pay for some help. It sounds like he does pull his weight with the DC on the weekend-6 hours child free every week is quite a block of time to yourself and OP doesn’t say if her DP has that luxury.

Interesting that you wanted the opinion of a a woman MARRIED to a surgeon. I am a woman who IS a surgeon, married to a computer guy.
Yes the job is high stress, focused and unpredictable, with overnight calls that leave you drained. You're always juggling. You also interact with people all day, and need down time to recharge. Looking after a child the second you get home is not going to do it.

.With two working parents, why don't you have a nanny? You can't do two jobs wellfull time child care and work from homeso hire someone to come in daily to do chores, assignments, child care: take the child places, do art projects...whatever. Once your kid starts school the juggling only gets worse, so start now. And you are fortunate to have two incomes to do it.

Finally, there is sexism at play, but it will be directed against your husband. No one said anything when I scaled back my practice so I could take the kids to school because I was their mother. So I started 90 min later in the OR in the morning. But more than one man told me he wished he could do what I was doing but he wouldn't be allowed to. They were probably right. So I suspect your husband has to deal with that too.

Just look at your day and, guilt free, carve out the time you need child care so you can not only work but get some time for yourself as well. Maybe week days and one evening a week. Or Saturday afternoon. Everyone will be happier.