Should a Brain Surgeon be up at night with a baby doing night feeds ?

[Mondaytuesdayhappydays]

Should a surgeon working full time, operating on patients each day be up with a baby at night doing 2/3 hourly feeds.

If they were operating in your child and had had only 3/4 hours sleep each night over the last fortnight would this be acceptable to you?

I've had brain surgery and they work in 2s, so hopefully all should be fine.

This is the reality of it, ultimately. One of my DD’s has a friend whose parents are both doctors and one is a brain surgeon. I would presume that they split parenting pretty equally when the kids are in their care. (And for those talking about 3 nannies, unfortunately not! They’re very affluent, of course, but they’re not mega rich.) So unless you’re going to say brain surgeons can’t have kids, there will be times when one is up with his/hers in the night…..

They don’t get paid that well in the nhs. Why do you think they were striking.

No if course not. But presumably they can afford help.

People consistently overestimate doctor’s salaries - especially given the length of training, additional costs (between exams, insurance, GMC membership, college membership etc I spent nearly £3000 last year for the privilege of being able to practice).

Say you start medical school at 18…

Med school - 5 years (realistically if you’re aiming for neurosurgery you’ll spend an extra year doing an intercalated degree so let’s estimate 6 years)

Foundation program - 2 years

Neurosurgery training - 8 years but getting a spot is incredibly competitive (12 applicants to each post last round) so let’s estimate a year or two to get in - at this point you’ll probably do a staff grade job. If you want to get a consultant job then you’re basically expected to have a PhD so let’s also add in three years for that.

We’re now at 21 years so that 18 year old is 39 and they’re finally in a position to do a consultant job. However there’s a huge bottleneck in neurosurgery so back to the staff grade job market where yes, there is a range in salaries but most are advertised around 50-60,000 with some significantly lower.

So basically your average neurosurgeon is going to be 40+ if they wait for a consultant salary to have a baby. Odds are if you want a family you’ll want to start trying earlier than that so you’ll be having your baby on your SHO/reg/staff grade salary. The flippant dismissal of ‘oh well you’re a doctor so loaded so get a night nanny’ is really annoying. There’s a reason neurosurgery (and indeed many types of surgery) is overwhelmingly male despite women being the majority of doctors.

Very probably. Or, I’m going to hazard a guess at a new father who is trying to use his “important job” to avoid parenting and who has just had his arse handed to him by his sleep deprived wife.

Elective brain surgery isn’t usually planned for Sundays, so yes, he can take the night feeds.

Not acceptable. And the Mother should have known this before having children with him, so she is expected to do the night feeds. Some jobs just have to take priority.

I would say no, provided the other parent doesn’t have a job that you’d also give that answer to. However, the brain surgeon must pull their weight in other respects. They do the night feeds on their days off, do they take the baby from the other parent for a rest when they get home. Do they do the other household chores the other parent can’t do because they’re so sleep deprived.

The brain surgeon was once a junior doctor working long shifts and being constantly on call. I would assume that doing night feeds wouldn’t entail anything like that level level of sleep deprivation, so l’d be OK with it.

I’m pretty sure that any parent who is smart enough to be a surgeon will have worked this out BEFORE they have a baby. Since babies are well known for disrupting sleep, it’s not as if it was a surprise .

So no doubt this brain surgeon has a plan eg sharing overnights with her parther, going part time , hiring a night nanny.

Even consultants in the NHS do not get paid enough to be able to pay for overnight nannies.
Quite a few I know are still in rented flats, can't afford somewhere with a garden for their children which they have put off having because of their work and cost

What if the mother is the neurosurgeon?

Surely though if the OP was the neurosurgeon she would have called it that.

Is the brain surgeon not still on maternity leave? Hopefully by the time she is back at work the baby will sleep better.

Not in a million years

No, they should be on paternity/ maternity leave, having a very young baby and doing this job are not compatible.
My boss is CFO and even she seems massively off her game with the lack of sleep and making questionable decisions/ finding it difficult to get the detail right. Have had to save quite a few big things from going wrong, whereas previously that was never the case.

Nothing wrong with taking 1+ year off with the baby, your job will likely pay very well for it and equally you can hopefully afford it x

youve chosen to completely miss the point… if cleaners make a mistake then a bit of floor doesn’t get mopped, if a neurosurgeon makes a mistake when operating with fractions of mm margin of error then someone loses their function to speak/memorise/move…

Not sure why more recent posters are assuming the surgeon must be the father and that the mother isn’t a surgeon. Interesting.

Spot on

Why are you assuming the brain surgeon is a man?

Anyone, male or female, who performs a safety-critical role where a mistake will cause death - various kinds od surgeons not just brain surgeons, air traffic control and pilots etc, will receive training on the effects of fatigue and will have a professional responsibility to declare the fact and step away from active duty if they can't reliably perform properly due to lack of sleep.

A brain surgeon is paid enough that they can employ a night nanny to do the overnight work.

Totally agree. There are 100s of jobs that could result in multiple life's lost if people aren't well rested.

A brain surgeon will only make a mess of one person a train driver could kill hundreds.

No they shouldn’t along with a long list of other occupations … my bil slept in the spare room before flying for instance

@Mondaytuesdayhappydays what's your point why haven't you come back to the thread?

No working parent should be up doing night feeds when the other parent is still on maternity leave. Full stop.