Estimated read time: 8 mins
As numbers of women doctors grow, the need to understand, and address, the working lives and challenges of women doctors is apparent.
The proportion of women medical students and doctors is growing. In 2025, the UK General Medical Council announced there were more women doctors registered than men for the first time ever1. In Ireland, 58% of new medical students are women2, 55% of current trainees are women3, 56% of GPs are women4, and 41% of hospital consultants3. International research suggests care by women doctors may result in: lower costs5, and better outcomes6-8, communication9, and satisfaction10 for patients.
However, there is also cause for concern as the numbers of women in medicine rise. Compared to male colleagues, women doctors may experience higher emotional distress11, earn less12, may be less satisfied with their careers13, and may be more likely to leave the profession14. Women doctors have described experiencing hostile work environments, gender discrimination, and sexual harassment15. Given ongoing difficulties in recruiting and keeping doctors in the profession, there is a clear to tackle working cultures or conditions that do not support women doctors.
The MAM project, funded by the MPS Foundation and being led by researchers within the Department of General Practice at University of Galway, considers one important element of women doctors’ lives – the experience of, and supports for, family planning, pregnancy, and motherhood. Research, largely from the US and Canada, suggests women doctors delay having kids, are more likely to need fertility treatments, are treated poorly while pregnant, and feel that their work costs them time with their kids16,17. However, working conditions and cultures in North America are very different to those in the European Union and United Kingdom. So,What is the experience of women doctors across the EU and UK as they plan for, carry, and raise their children?How are these experiences impacted by their careers and how are their careers impacted by these experiences?How can we support women doctors to balance their family and career?
The MAM project is answering these questions, giving women doctors the chance to talk about what has often been a taboo subject, and providing the data that’s required for training bodies, healthcare systems, healthcare organisations, and individual healthcare providers to better support women doctors. The MAM project includes: a review of European and UK research on fertility and family planning, pregnancy, and motherhood among women doctors; a survey of Irish women doctors; interviews with women doctors, and; bringing together experts that will turn the data into action towards an optimal working environment for women doctors.
Overall, relatively few studies (34 in total) have looked at the experiences of women doctors in the UK and Europe. As comparison, in a previous review16 of 407 papers focused solely on pregnancy among women doctors, more than 80% of studies and commentaries/editorials were from North America. The main findings of our review were:
Women doctors have difficulty balancing work with family. This can have a number of impacts including pushing them to reduce working hours or take a career break, and causing feelings of stress, unhappiness, and guilt.
Family considerations are closely intertwined with specialty choice. General practice is often considered “family friendly” while surgery was seen as incompatible with family life.
Although pregnancy complications do occur among women doctors, they don’t seem to happen more often than for other groups.
Women doctors had fewer children and were more likely to report experiencing negative consequences when balancing work and family than doctor-fathers.
Existing policies to support pregnant doctors to work and to manage organisational and financial issues are inadequate. For example, the lack of a planned return-to-work period after maternity leave.
A total of 776 women doctors completed our survey, and many provided some response to open-ended questions. While the analysis of this data is currently ongoing, and the full manuscript remains to be written, a number of interesting preliminary findings have emerged:
Family considerations impact specialty choice
More than half of participants agreed that family considerations had impacted their choice of specialty. GPs were more likely than others to report this, to have their children at a younger age, and to have more children. There is a perception of whether specialties are “family-friendly” or not, with one woman noting “It is well known that certain training schemes aren’t suitable/conducive to having children while on them, [you] will either be disadvantaged or not accommodated…”. Some participants described changing specialties when planning for their family. For instance, one commented “I was partially influenced to change specialty prior to having my family as I couldn’t envision my life with a family in the demands of hospital medicine or what I did envision was giving up my time with my children to be there for work – a sacrifice I wasn’t willing to make…”.
Nearly a third of respondents had reported experiencing infertility
Twenty-nine percent of respondents had reported experiencing infertility and a quarter of these had accessed fertility treatments. Nearly ninety percent reported at least some degree of difficulty in accessing treatment with their work schedule. There was no apparent relationship between infertility and specialty or grade. Participants described the difficulties of balancing treatments with work, stigma around infertility, and an impact on their career progression and work. For instance, one noted “I had serious struggles with fertility and felt it was completely taboo to mention it. I had to hide infertility which for several years was like having an active illness in terms of the number of appointments, scans, financial implications and medications I had to take…”. Participants emphasised a need for supportive policies and better fertility education for women doctors.
Maternity leave as a burden to colleagues
Almost 70% of respondents agreed that they felt that their maternity leave was a burden to their colleagues. Participants described hurtful exchanges with colleagues around maternity leave, how this impacted their decision making, and feelings of guilt and loyalty. For instance, one commented that “I did not take the full allowable maternity leave on my first pregnancy to reduce the burden on my colleagues…”, while another wrote that “…you are made to feel that being off will be a major burden to your colleagues...”
Specific challenges for GPs
GPs reported significantly shorter maternity leaves than hospital doctors. Run as private practices in the Republic of Ireland, many GPs may only receive state maternity benefits which are not commensurate with their usual salaries. The reduced income can have significant impacts for GPs, with one noting “…I took a big financial hit with both pregnancies and just had to make do & use savings. In my last pregnancy I only had the state maternity pay… has probably been a barrier to having another baby”, and another stating “…I wish I'd stayed working in hospitals for longer so I could have more time with my babies…”. For many pregnant GPs, there is also a struggle to identify appropriate cover for a practice during their leave and this caused worry and stress.
The disruption of moving
Participants frequently commented on the difficulty of having to move hospitals, and often counties, in order to fulfil training requirements. One noted that “It’s very difficult for doctors to plan a family who work in training schemes in Ireland that expect you to rotate around different hospitals. This means either being away from your husband or partner while pregnant or moving away from the support of other family after having a baby”. Some noted that the requirement to move affected when they started a family, with some voicing the belief that “…[you] have to get years of moving around the country with over before settling with children”.
Hostile work environments
Some responses to open-ended questions alluded to potentially hostile work environments and poor treatment during pregnancy. One participant felt they were “treated as a pariah” while pregnant during the training. Others felt that the challenges of balancing work with family were dismissed. One woman described being told that “you decided to have children, you must live with the consequences”, and the idea that “Calling in sick to mind your sick child is an absolute taboo….” was repeated by a number of women.
Parental guilt
The emotional strain of balancing work with children was often described. One women noted that “I still have huge guilt of not being around for my children….I was busiest at work when I wanted to be at home the most. Now they have grown up more.... guilt…sadness… loss of time that will never be regained. But my hands were tied…” and others noted there was no possible way to balance all commitments effectively.
Survey respondents acknowledged that “…we have got better… but there is room for more improvement” when discussing their experiences. The remaining work in the MAM project is focused on finding workable solutions to improve women’s experiences and to support them in enjoying their family while working as a doctor.
