I absolutely have work-life balance and I got it by:

1) Having only one kid for a 2 high stress/demanding career family.
2) Putting off serious pursuit of med school untilI my kid got much older.
3) Working for organizations and companies that offer flexibility. Earlier this year, I quit a job paying almost 6 figures when management changed and they became strict about scheduling.

What would have helped me to have it even more? Not marrying a guy that works more than Surgeons do. I'd like to think that if I had married a teacher or a nurse I may have had 2 kids instead of one with them spaced VERY, VERY far apart, LOL!!!

I do now. I didn't when I first came to this site a few years ago, and I was wondering if anyone did.

We live in a small town with a lot of family and several close friends. I spend my mornings working PT as a psychiatrist doing inpatient consults and run a very small clinic. I spend afternoons playing with my kids and visiting family and friends. My husband is also a physician and works full-time, but his hours aren't crazy demanding because his group is big enough and the hospital is small enough (no traumas or transplants).

My husband makes the bulk of our income. I also make a pretty good salary and we both are enrolled in a loan repayment program at our hospital since we are in an underserved area. We hire out anything we can including a babysitter that comes to our home, weekly housekeeper, lawncare, painter, handyman, etc. This is also pretty easy since we live in a LCOL area.

I started medical school at age 20 and finished residency at age 29. I had my first two children while in residency, and that was difficult and I probably would have done it differently if I had it to do again. I am due with our third next week and I'm very excited about it. They are spaced very close together (oldest is 3.5).

There are times when I deal with urgent, over the phone questions and consults when I am home with my kids, and that can feel a little stressful. But overall, I am really happy with my work life and my home life right now.

Lol...I guess I did almost the opposite of Path201X, but it's working well for us.

Annie, I am pretty much exactly where you are. We struggled for a few years to get to the point we are now, but it was totally worth it. We made choices to move closer to family (but not too close!), take lower paying jobs with better hours and lifestyle, and to live somewhat below our means.

IMHO, there's no "one size fits all" when it comes to this issue. My point is to say that you can have work/life balance, doing what's ultimately best for you and your particular situation but understanding the sacrifices that go along with ANY choices made.

I'm reasonably certain that NONE of us got to this point easily and I'm sure it's also true of most women that it was a LOT harder when we all first started this juggling act.

But with time and the wisdom that hopefully goes along with it, things improve!

I have no balance. I try really hard, but I don't. Third year sucks. Being in surgery is long.

I am about to stop studying today and I am going to get some frozen yogurt with my husband and kid. I guess that is my balance today.

Sometimes I wonder if becoming an astronaut or a rocket scientist might have been easier.

I just don't think I am used to 31-hour workdays yet. That's probably it. I'm a little tired/glum today.

Why do people think being a good Scientist is easier?

I guess knowing so many Physician/Scientists combo's, and hearing their perspectives on their careers gives me different outlook about this than perhaps many other people have.

Sure medicine is "different", but from what I've heard and seen as compared to Scientific research, you simply trade one pile of crap for another. Whinning students, whining patients. Decreasing reimbursements from insurance companies, decreasing grant opportunities. Completing office paperwork at home, reading journal articles at home.

Boo-boo smells no differently than $hit to me.

If the carpool lady is on time and the babysitter doesn't bail on me and the cleaning lady remembers to show up, and no crisis at any of the kids' schools and nobody gets sick- then I sort of have balance as a part time doc in private practice. If anything breaks down, then it's pandemonium. I have been known to feed the kids Tylenol and Advil and hoping the fever stays down long enough for me to be done at work before the school calls.
It's hard because my husband works full time as an internist and is very busy (also the major breadwinner) and we have absolutely no family in the US. So whatever I can't do , we have to outsource. Add to that the additional issues of having a special needs child who needs a lot of extra one on one time and therapy, and it can get difficult to balance.

Best thing I ever did though was getting out of primary care- I couldn't have kept this work schedule in primary care. As is, I have a 100% consultative practice in endocrinology, where call is really light and I am in full control of my schedule (working 2.5 days a week). I also make a ridiculously low amount though, it really feels like I work for childcare and therapy and then it's all gone ! It's a trade off.

I can't answer for everyone but *I* think being a scientist is easier because I watch my husband do it every day and, WOW, does it look easy.



(To be fair, he's a) a physicist [= experiments are dead -- never urgent/time sensitive] and b) he works in the private sector.)

Re: balance, what does that mean, anyway?

Yeah, my brother is a PhD in Mech Engineering. He worked at one of the most famous labs in the country, invented something one of the top universities in his field now owns, and is now tenure-tracked at another university. So in all fairness, I guess I should have said professor, but even during his terrible graduate "life in the lab" days, he had charge of when he sat, ate, pooped and peed. To me that sounded pretty nice. As a third-year med student, I have pretty low standards these days.

Ladies, why are even talking about the careers of MEN, why by definition the reason they have such "perfect" work/life balance is because of US!