Session 80 This week, we're answering a question that comes up a lot, usually from females, which is whether or not a medical student can have a family while in med school. This episode will help you especially if you're a female or even if you're a male and getting ready to be married or you have a relationship with somebody and you're thinking about having kids. This is not the same situation as wanting your cake and eating it too. It's a situation where you want to be a premed, a medical student, or a physician, and you want to have a family at the same time. Reality is women enter medical school and residency every year and they have kids. It's a wonderful biological process of having babies. It's natural and it doesn't get put on hold unless you want it to. [02:50] OldPreMeds Question of the Week: "I'm a 35-year- old woman turning 36 tomorrow and after a major life event last year, I have felt that my true calling is being a physician. I have a couple science prereqs left to take i the MCAT and some great docs lined up to shadow over the next few months to confirm my desire to be a doctor. If I stay with this track, I'll apply next year for a 2019 start. By then I'll be 38 and my boyfriend is super supportive of me becoming a doc but we are also getting serious about getting married and having kids. I'm wondering what you all think about starting med school and having babies in the same few years? Anybody have young ones or planning to at the same time as medical school? Yes, I know, it may be crazy but is it still doable?" [03:50] Here are my thoughts: Yes! It's definitely doable. If you're not part of the Hangout Group on Facebook, go there and type a message. Try to tag Jessica White. Jessica was a student of mine and she was on The Premed Years podcast several months ago back on Episode 168. She got into medical school, in fat ten medical schools actually. She got married, started medical school, and she had a baby on the first year. Is it easy? Heck no! Having a baby is not easy. Having a baby in medical school is even less easy but it's doable. I teach a little bit at a medical school here in Colorado and one of the students that was teaching with me was a fourth year student who had two kids during medical school and she took off a year for each kid. The school obviously had to grant her that and she made it work. Although it took her longer to finish medical school, she felt it was the right decision for her and her family to have the baby and stay home and raise the infant until she was ready to go back to school and reintegrate herself into medical school and then do it all over again with a second kid. Now, she matched in Psychiatry and she's going into residency. Again, it's doable. Easy? No. But then again, having babies isn't really easy. It's just one of those things where you're going to have to prioritize your time. You're going to have to be very good at time management and be very efficient with studying. Have a great support system around you. Lastly, you're just going to have to deal with being crazy for a while. But it's doable without a doubt. [06:24] Physician Moms Group This is a very common question that comes up, usually, from women who are interested in going to medical school, being premed, being a physician. They have that lingering question of what if they want to be a mom too. Although I'm not sure if they allow premed students at this time, but I highly recommend Physician Moms Group (PMG) on Facebook or on their website. They have almost 70,000 members in it. Their founder is Dr. Hala Sabry, an ER doc with three kids. She was also on The Premed Years podcast back in Episode 201. This is a huge resource for students thinking about going to medical school and being a mom. It's a big support group for women physician moms. [07:32] Final Thoughts Hopefully, this episode was helpful to you. Please share this podcast with somebody you think would benefit from this. If you're in a postbac prog