This week's edition of Practice Perfect features Guest Editor Erika Schwartz, DPM. Dr Schwartz is Immediate Past President of the American Association of Women Podiatrists and a working mother. In her response to “Practice Perfect (487), Working Women: My Apology to You”, she shares with us the personal experience she has had balancing her professional and personal lives.

I’d like to offer another perspective. I had my first child almost eight years ago. At that time I had been in private practice for over three years. My husband was a professional staffer on the Senate Banking Committee. His boss was the original author of the Family Medical Leave Act, and he believed strongly in its premise. For his personal and committee staff, he would grant up to three months paid maternity and paternity leave, and encouraged women and men to take it. Following my nine weeks of maternity leave, my husband took paternity leave. He only took five weeks. In 2008, the banking committee was pretty busy. His co-workers frequently called with work questions and would call his absence a “vacation”. My husband would respond to this with his explanations of how hard it is to take care of a baby and how exhausted he was. I remember enjoying when they would make this comment, because I felt it so much more effective when a man tells another man how hard it is to care for a tiny human being full time. Upon his return, Senator Dodd told him he should not have skimped on paternity leave and that nobody would ever thank him for coming back early. This was true. People who might resent him for taking paternity leave were unlikely to appreciate why he did it until they had the opportunity to take it themselves. But I was always grateful. I believe that his taking paternity leave paved the road to the shared responsibility for our children that we continue to redefine ever since. When our son was born almost three years later, my husband was working at the Department of Defense, and paternity leave was not an option. But by then our system had taken shape. While I appreciate Dr. Shapiro’s call for men to do the laundry, clean the floors and make dinner, I think Senator Dodd’s approach did much more for me.

I am not going to say that there weren’t sacrifices to be made on my part. The changes that I continue to make are part of our ever evolving work/life balance. I stopped taking calls at the hospital, which limited my time educating residents and doing limb salvage; both things I truly enjoyed. My husband did daycare drop off and I was on pick up, so I no longer scheduled surgery after office hours. But he had to make major changes too and had to sacrifice most early morning meetings. If one of our kids was sick or childcare was closed, we had our own system for who would cancel their day. Scheduled surgery always took priority, because we agreed it is just not fair for that patient to be canceled. Next came meetings at the White House, or certain other meetings that I was not at high enough clearance to know much about, but I had to trust were extremely important. Sometimes we looked for the part of the day when I had more patients scheduled and split the day with him rescheduling meetings into the better times. Our decisions in this regard have never had anything to do with gender. And I know that the people I worked with thought that I was the one doing most of the childcare and schedule adjustments, much like Dr. Shapiro assumes his female colleagues are. I wasn’t, but people see things from the perspective of what affects them directly. And frankly, young kids get sick a lot and childcare arrangements are far from perfect.

As the years have gone on, I have seen a change in the male doctor whom I work for. Three years ago, the third doctor in our practice took a leave of absence that was longer than my two maternity leaves combined. This coincided with winter, and anyone familiar with the Washington, DC region may know how an inch of snow can close schools. With only two doctors and two different office locations, I wanted to avoid canceling patients unless absolutely necessary. So I started bringing my five-year-old to work if school closed and I had no other back up plan. While we both felt this was not ideal, the other doctor in my practice realized it in no way disrupted the office because I was prepared with activities to keep my daughter independently entertained for the day. I watched as this changed his outlook. His wife had been full time at home with their three children through his career, and much like Dr. Shapiro describes, he never had to worry much about childcare issues. Not only did he show his appreciation for my dedication to our practice while balancing my home life, but he also let our staff with elementary school age children know that if a school snow day would stop them from coming to work, they could bring their child with them. He acknowledged the multiple locations I was driving between to drop off and pick up my children when my husband started to travel extensively for work, and adjusted office meeting locations based on where it would be easiest for me. These were things that affected him little, but made a big difference for me. I now notice him weighing these issues when he makes office decisions, and appreciate it greatly

We now have four doctors in our practice and in July will add a fifth. “Equality” is not what I would call the assumption that they should take on more work when someone reproduces. Things in life happen that are not as predictable as maternity and paternity leave. We need to make adjustments along the way that create the best work environment, while balancing life at home. Some of those adjustments are easier than you may think, and they don’t have to lead to resentment or feeling guilty for having been resentful. I believe that the more we all come up with ways to support one another through these kind of life challenges, the greater the reward to our profession. I challenge my colleagues reading this to think about how you can support young women to take a leadership role in our professional organizations. It’s often a path with obstacles when looked at from a traditional view, which may be maneuvered differently with a slightly changed outlook.

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