I am a 3rd year internal medicine resident and will be applying for Pulmonary fellowship.

I am expecting a baby in April - which means it will be clearly apparent that I am pregnant during the interview season.

To what degree will being pregnant negatively affect chances of getting into Fellowship programs (assuming I am able to travel to not all but atleast some nearby programs for interviews)

Will appreciate any comments

Hello All - will appreciate your inputs - as I am considering whether to go for abortion or take my chances and hope I will not be reducing my chances to get into fellowship programs.

You cannot be discriminated against if you are pregnant or have a family (they technically aren't even allowed to ask you this on interviews). It is extremely sad if you are so worried about fellowship that you are considering an abortion.

Historically, a lot of women physicians and physicians in training did have abortions rather than be pregnant, give birth, and raise a child at a time that would compromise their career or their ability to raise a child. One member of MomMD wrote a book a while back about the experiences of a group of her med school friends (I think they are nearing retirement age now) and abortion was common back then. Or maybe it is still common but we are just not talking about it now...especially on a site like this where we are mostly moms.

Hopefully this will not turn into a debate about abortion, but vmtlab, it is still legal to have an abortion and it is still your choice. I'm sure you would not make such a decision lightly.

I suppose that depends a lot on what specialty you want, whether you are married/ involved steadily, where you live, how competitive you are at baseline... and about a hundred other factors. I do think it's sad that anyone would consider abortion to increase their fellowship chances... which makes me feel as if the baby is not so much wanted in any case.

To answer the question in your 1st post: I do not think being pregnant during interviews should hurt you. This topic has been discussed here a lot, and the general consensus is that if some programs hold it against you, you do not want to go to that program anyway. I believe that at your stage of training it is so common to start a family that nobody during the fellowship interview should blink twice... especially if you make it a non-issue during the interviews. Your baby should be over a year old when you will be starting fellowship, and while not easy, it is definitely doable. I started my fellowship (heme-onc, maybe not as bad as pulmonary, but still pretty busy) with a 2 year old and a 5 months old. I was not pregnant during my interviews but I made it known that I had a child. Good luck!