To ask how possible it would be to be a single mother and junior doctor?

[MakeshiftMother]

I’m a single mum to one child. I always regretted not training as a doctor and may have the opportunity to do so now as a career change. But I’m wondering if it is too ridiculous an idea because of the hours. DC would be in early primary when I was an F1. My family are hands-on and supportive, and live nearby, but of course there are no guarantees about how much they’d be able to help then. I’d plan to go less than full time a little later but not sure yet whether I could afford the salary cut in the earlier years.

I’m hoping there might be some doctors on here, perhaps even who have done a similar thing, who could advise.

My friend managed it (although I have literally no idea how, she is a superhuman). I think basically by spending a lot on childcare and living on very very little. The good thing is with just yourself and a young child to consider you can cut your cloth accordingly (you can live in a studio flat at a push if you bedshare) and should be entitled to a decent amount of benefits to cover some of the childcare costs.

There is also the option to train part time but it looks like being a massive ballache, and for a career that can take min 10 years to fully qualify in it means devoting a substantila amount of your working life to just training: www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/career-opportunities-doctors/less-full-time-training-doctors

Your Clinical Placement years at University would also involve shift work and you don’t get the long summer holidays those years.

You will need someone who is happy to look after your child overnight (and I mean from 730pm to 930am) several days a month...
I think it is possible but going to require a lot of childcare

It’s an utter nightmare even with no children. It won’t be just F1. It’ll be the same for years.

Au pair? Live in nanny?

It will be expensive for a while but thereafter would be a great move for you and your child.

It will be expensive for a while but thereafter would be a great move for you and your child.

Based on what?

I think basically by spending a lot on childcare and living on very very little.

This.
And/Or heavy parental support (financial and childcare)

Also the long hours and exams go on for years after qualification. Personally I think being a medical student is easier than the junior doctor years. Also be aware that you may need to move for job.

I couldn't have done it but I know some do...

The way that jobs work is you are placed in a deanery. This could be a huge area of the country and given a job miles and miles away from where you live. You often have to apply for the next stage of training every few years with no guarantee that you’ll get it locally. Shifts with new jobs often are given out on the day you start so you might be on a night shift that evening.

It’s a nightmare.

Clinical placement years don’t tend to involve shift work for medical students. Or if they do it’s optional, or very rare (eg shadow one on-call shift per placement). And you can do less than full time training once you’re qualified, which while it obviously reduces your salary and means foundation takes longer, also proportionately reduces your childcare bills, and out of hours and on-call commitments, so it is doable. I’m just finishing medical school (finals start on Tuesday!) and while not single I have a shift working husband and two small children - the eldest is in reception and the youngest is 1 - and with his shifts we’re going to have the same issues with out of hours and weekends. You can get financial help with childcare while you’re a student, and if you already have a degree and do a graduate entry course you’ll be eligible for a bursary from the NHS from year 2.

And re PurpleDaisies comment above, if you have dependents you are guaranteed to be placed in your local deanery, and within a reasonable commute of where you live. So while it might not be the absolute most convenient hospital for you you definitely won’t be sent miles and miles away.

It’s doable but would be hard, but you know that already! Medical school wouldn’t require you to do any shift work, and you’d get preferential treatment in terms of placements - you wouldn’t be sent away from home for example. Once qualified it would get a bit harder - most junior docs I know in this situation have some kind of live in help such as an au pair, to help with school drop off and night shifts. Many F1 jobs these days don’t have nights anyway so not necessarily a huge issue. It’s a brilliant job, relatively well paid, excellent job security etc. Medical schools and foundation schools are well set up to offer help to people with difficult personal situations these days and there will be childcare grants you can access. Why not go and have a chat with your nearest med school and see what they have to say?

Read This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay and then see how you feel. I have several doctors among my immediate family and quite a few more among my close friends - some have stayed in the hospital setting beyond their junior years, some have gone into family practice. For ALL of them I believe it has only been possible because of huge levels of support from spouses and wider family. In some cases the spouse hasn’t worked at all while doc was doing JHO/SHO/Registrar years and in others the spouse has worked but the grandparents have done a heck of a lot of childcare.

Whatever the way they’ve managed is - they have ALL made a ton of sacrifices over a long period of time.

It is possible, hard, at times very hard I imagine but when I was a house officer (now fy1 and 2) I had a colleague in this situation. In those days we worked a 1:3 rota, so every third night she worked for 36 hrs straight through. She paid for a live in nanny.
Remember that while this would eat up a lot of salary at the beginning, medicine is rewarding career, and well renumerated in later stages plus your dc will not always need childcare.
My dexh worked away a lot, when I was trainee doctor, I had mix of au pair, grandparents and flexi boarding at school for my dc.
Really.. Go for it, I have had a hugely interesting career, I know work in a mostly non clinic role, which is relatively stress free. I have travelled the world working as a doctor and given my family a great standard of living

It's possible but really, really hard. I have had friends who have done it and I really admire them. It's expensive, tiring and requires a lot of family support or expensive and hard-to-find childcare. I've waitied until being fully qualified as a GP before having children as I didn't think I could cope with it alongside training. And I'm not a single mother.
Do you know what speciality you'd choose?
Do you know anyone, preferably with children, who works in that specialty who you trust will talk to you frankly? There is a huge amount of misinformation about what it's really like to be a doctor so make sure you're really well informed before taking the plunge!

My brother is 31 and never took a gap year, trained full time in the fastest route possible. His last ever exam is in the spring. The exams are insanely difficult and he has done extremely well. He has a newborn and a 2 year old and is married to a part time GP. OP think long and hard given the current state of the NHS.

You'd need pretty much 24/7 childcare on tap once you qualify - you won't work set days or shifts so how are you going to organise a childminder or after school care? You'll be paying for days you won't need a lot of the time, and who is going to care for your child overnight or in the evenings? Will that person be happy to keep your child later or have her earlier if you're called in on an emergency or need to stay late at the last minute?

My dad was a doctor and he always said the reason they waited to have a child was so he could get the antisocial hours out of the way before having a young child to consider. By the time I came along he was working long but predictable hours and my mum was around at weekends if he was on call. I was in childcare 8-6 during the week every single day as my mum worked full-time as well.

It will be hard - bloody hard. My best friends husband is doing a junior doctor and she often doesn't see him for a couple of days straight. They don't have children but I think she finds it quite difficult - it's unpredictable work and quite stressful but in equal measures it's also very rewarding.

Adam Kay was a house officer many moons ago...things are very different now! Better hours, better pay, ability to work less than full time, trainees actually get supported and supervised rather than hung out to dry. My first F1 this year started the job full time with a 6 week old baby. Yes, we had to make some adjustments for her to enable her to pump milk etc, but she’s done brilliantly and will undoubtedly finish the year and move seamlessly into F2.

It would be really hard on you and would it be fair on the child? My daughter has worked lots of nights and is nearly dead with tiredness afterwards. Four 14 hour night shifts without a break takes its toll. Particularly when repeated every month.

Medical school might be easier but is a long hard slog with most of your ‘free time’ spent studying. Who’ll have the child then? What life is it if it’s mother is out for say 11 hours in travelling to placement and then has to study for three or four hours in the evening?
What about in FY1 when your job is based on rankings and you might have to move away from your family support? What happens to the child then?
Maybe wait until the child is old enough to attend boarding school to offer some stability to them. Having had a child, their needs must surely be the paramount consideration.

And yes you can work set shifts and have set days off if you’re less than full time - OP, please get advice from people who actually understand how the system works now and aren’t just telling you what their mate had to do years ago.

Regarding deaneries and placements there is a lot more emphasis on trying to give placements that work for families than there used to be but it's by no means guaranteed.

You wouldn’t spend 11 hours a day going to placement - our students arrive at 9 and leave again at 4! No out of hours work required. Yes you’d have to do some study when your child is in bed but no different to what many people with full time jobs (teachers for example) have to do!

@cantchoose as a single parent i can’t think of any deanery where a local placement wouldn’t be made possible.

Welshweasel that must depend on the medical school and where the gp placements are located. Most of my daughters cohort did 11 hour days when doing gp placements. That included traveling but no allowances were made and few people wanted to swop to the far flung practices.

I'm a childminder, and one of the first families I signed up was a young woman studying to be a doctor with a daughter about to start reception year in primary. She also had a very supportive and hands on family, so between them and me helping with her daughter, she made it work. It wasn't easy, but she was amazing!
She did a term abroad in her final year with her daughter too. Her daughter went to a school in the country she worked in for the term and she loved it.

As a single parent, the university paid for a good portion, of not all of her childcare fees from me. I think I had to occasionally complete a form for her.
They've moved away now but she's a very successful doctor, and getting married this year! I miss her daughter very much 😢

Good luck, OP! Just do it!!