Hi everyone- I am a middle aged pediatrician married to a neurosurgeon. You can see where this is going (lol). We moved to a small town where he immediately devoted himself to his (thankfully) successful career, but he was literally never available to the family. I tried several ways over the years to balance family and career- often switching jobs to accommodate the needs of family, to eventually staying home full time. Now I have an empty nest. While I do not regret that I raised my kids, and am the parent who was available to them, I am now wondering what to do next. While I am glad my husband is successful, it is hard not to feel resentful ( and angry at myself) for we morphed into the classical medical marriage as it worked for the family. It was the best solution for the kids to not be the subject of a constant power struggle with my husband over work, but by giving up on my career, I feel resentment and although I do not have to have a super career like his- (in fact, do not want to work my husband's hours), but I would like to do something productive with my experience.

I did keep up license/CME but lack confidence in the workplace. I would definitely shadow a clinician and pursue supervised practice before any clinical activity- for any patients' sake and mine. I would also consider a related field if available, one that makes use of my education. One major change since I came here has been the influx of physician extenders. While I would prefer part time, a practice can hire a full time physician extender instead of me- and they have. So the demand for what I can do seems to be limited.

I would love to hear ideas or if anyone else has been in a similar situation and what they have done.

Thanks.

I am at a very different place in my life right now, and I don't have much personal experience with this fellowship, but I think if I were you I would look into doing a developmental-behavioral fellowship. It would probably be pretty low-key, mostly outpatient, very needed, not very competitive, and very interesting.
I think that it would give you an opportunity to draw on your pediatrics knowledge as well as all of the knowledge you have about normal child development, behavior, and parenting from having focused on that for so long.

Physicienne, I will PM you.

I think behavioral peds is a great suggestion. Child psych would be another options. Your pediatric training would really help you. There are fellowships which are 3 years long, and the training hours are usually not that grueling.

It is nice to hear you talk about this time when you find you have more energy for your career. I have two young children right now, and would love to stay home with them. I find even one day at work and I feel so disconnected and like I am missing so much. And unfortunately I am still a resident so I work just about every day It is nice to know that there will probably be a time in the future that I am so glad I did this!

Best of luck to you. And have fun with it! It sounds to me like you probably have a lot of options, maybe more than you are even realizing! I like to dream of all the things I could do in my life....

Oh Physicienne, welcome!

There is no reason you cannot return to general pediatrics practice, if this is what you want to do.

I did not stop practicing when I had my boys (except for maternity leaves) but I have never worked more than part time. There is much more acceptance now in Pediatrics of part time or interrupted work schedules. At least where I live. This is relatively new though, past 10 years. At first, it was a big struggle for me to "break the mold" and NOT work FT.

I would start by networking, attending Grand Rounds (if you are near an academic center) etc. Maybe you have already been doing this. You might be surprised how quickly it comes back to you, I think it is like riding a bike. Especially if you have kept up via CME's, etc.

I know how it is to compromise your career to you husband's. Fortunately my husband is not a Neurosurgeon but I have friends who stopped practice due to husband's specialty demands. In my case, it was a matter of scaling back my career goals, taking the "mommy trajectory" and not becoming partner, etc etc. I had resentment about that for a long time. Now I am ok because as my kids are getting older I see that soon I will be able to "ramp it up" again! The years of raising kids goes so quickly, it is not your whole life!

Well best of luck and keep us posted. PM me if you want to chat more.

yours

You are in similar situation like me.
Hubby physician too and we decided that better for me to stay home - mom and he earns more.
Now kids are off to school..so I am thinking of going back.
Search high and low...
The only real option is doing physician reentry program.
Big investment off the back and hopefully eventually will pay off.