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Medicine – a career that must make room for motherhood
By
Dr Sinéad Lydon and Ms Sanjana Biju
- 06th Apr 2026
iStock.com/South_agency
Dr Sinéad Lydon and Ms Sanjana Biju share initial findings from a project aimed at identifying how women doctors can raise their families and continue to thrive professionally
After decades of promises that the ‘future is female’, the foretold future has very much arrived in medicine. In Ireland, women comprise 47 per cent of doctors. Women represent 53 per cent of trainees, 52 per cent of GPs, and 41 per cent of consultants.
As the recruitment and retention crisis for doctors persists, understanding the experiences of working in the Irish healthcare system, and taking action to encourage doctors to continue to practise in Ireland, is essential.
The Medicine and Motherhood (MAM) project explores how balancing motherhood and a career in medicine impacts women doctors, their family, their practice and careers, and, ultimately, their ability to remain in clinical practice in Ireland.
The MAM project, which is funded by the Medical Protection Society (MPS) Foundation, will run until 2028. It will deliver recommendations for training schemes and a healthcare system that supports women doctors to have the family they desire while continuing to deliver high-quality healthcare.
The project recognises motherhood for what it is: A complex, seismic phenomenon, with unavoidable psychological and physiological changes. Motherhood begins long before birth, as women doctors decide when to start a family or contend with challenges around conception. Its impact also continues beyond the initial return-to-work through supporting growing children.
The experience of doctor-mothers
North American data suggest that women doctors are more likely than women in other professions to delay pregnancy, experience infertility, encounter negative attitudes towards motherhood, and perceive a negative impact of their career on their family. However, working cultures and conditions in North America differ considerably from those in Ireland. So, what is the experience of doctor-mothers working in Europe?
The MAM project began with a review of 34 studies that explored this. Key findings were:
▶ In spite of the enormity of motherhood, relatively few studies have documented experiences of doctors in Europe. A previous review examining pregnancy among women doctors identified more than 300 studies or commentaries from North America.
▶ Balancing clinical practice and family is difficult. Women doctors report several impacts including changes to working patterns or cessation of practice, and negative emotions such as stress, unhappiness, or guilt.
▶ Motherhood often shapes specialty choice, with some specialties, like general practice, considered ‘family friendly’ and others, such as surgery, perceived as incompatible with family life.
▶ Although pregnancy complications occur among women doctors, they do not seem to happen more frequently than expected.
▶ Doctor-mothers experience negative consequences of balancing work and family more often than doctor-fathers. Existing policies addressing workplace accommodations for pregnant doctors and return-to-work from maternity leave are perceived as inadequate.
The Irish experience
Our research has involved women doctors in Ireland working in primary and secondary care, across all specialties, and with experiences of infertility, pregnancy loss and complications, unplanned pregnancies, and with children of all ages. Our analysis of data from 776 surveys and 55 interviews is ongoing; however, preliminary results suggest the Irish experience is similar in many ways to that of EU and UK colleagues.
Our survey revealed that family considerations had influenced specialty choice for almost 60 per cent of respondents, particularly GPs.
Comments offered further insight.
Our survey revealed that family considerations had influenced specialty choice for almost 60 per cent of respondents, particularly GPs
One respondent said: “I did… a completely new basic specialist training, as in my previous specialty there was no consideration for family life in training requiring years away from home.”
Another stated: “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.”
Some 56 per cent of respondents reported experiencing pregnancy complications and 55 per cent had experienced loss – an incidence similar to that among Irish women more widely.
More women self-reported experiencing infertility than we might expect (29 per cent) – higher than the approximately 15 per cent EU-wide infertility rate. This is concerning given that more than 70 per cent of respondents who self-reported an experience of infertility felt that accessing fertility treatments was difficult (eg, rearranging schedule, swapping calls).
There were challenges noted around maternity leave. 46 per cent of respondents disagreed that they were satisfied with their duration of maternity leave, less than half (47 per cent) found it easy to arrange leave with their training programme, and 69 per cent reported that their maternity leave was a burden to colleagues.
Respondents detailed their feelings of guilt around ‘increasing’ workload for colleagues, with one noting: “You feel so guilty coming off call, as you know you are leaving colleagues stuck.”
Experiences of motherhood in medicine are variable. For instance, GPs were significantly more likely to have more children, and to have their first child at a younger age, than those in other specialties. Women in NCHD/trainee positions took longer maternity leave than those in more senior grades and GPs took shorter leaves than other specialties.
As we continue our analysis, a fuller understanding of the complexity of motherhood for women doctors is emerging. Family planning is positioned as paramount, but complex. When families do not happen as planned due to infertility or unanticipated pregnancy, the challenges are exacerbated. Motherhood creates new priorities and competing responsibilities for women doctors. The difficulties inherent in rotating throughout the country, or completing Fellowships abroad, are felt more keenly and may prove unnavigable. Experiences, and impacts, of motherhood vary and are mediated by different variables including specialty, career stage, and child, partner, or family characteristics.
Some important barriers relate to policies (eg, inaccessible or inadequate policies, or differences between practice and policy). Long working hours, limited flexible working options, and training that requires doctors to move away from partners and family support are also significant concerns. Other barriers relate to a culture hostile to motherhood where doctors are expected to plan families around work and attend no matter what. Facilitators of motherhood may include existing or negotiated flexibility in working patterns or role, rotations near home, availability of family support, good quality childcare, and support from colleagues.
The described impacts of motherhood touch the doctors, their children, partners, families, colleagues, along with patients, and the healthcare system. Some impacts are negative such as slowed career progression, missing time with children, increased responsibility and pressure on partners, and compromised emotional and physical wellbeing as doctors try to deliver for all. Positive impacts include children witnessing a strong role model and visible joy in work and for patients whose experiences are now shared and better understood.
What’s next?
In our analysis one important point stands out: The love of the work and caring for patients.
Many respondents dwelled on this point: “I enjoy my job and feel lucky to love my work and patients” or “I’ve spent so many years of my life training for this and for my career and for my job…. You still feel passionate about it.”
The primary objective of the MAM project is identifying what needs to change to allow women doctors to raise their families while continuing to thrive professionally – without apology, guilt, or sacrificing physical or mental health.
Participants suggest that ignoring the experience of doctor-mothers may mean losing crucial care providers. As one respondent poignantly remarked: “The culture of asking and expecting women to behave as if they’re not pregnant or that they don’t have small kids at home, it is so toxic and so needless. I think that women in those years could do an excellent 90 per cent effort, for that decade or whatever, and be amazing contributors to medicine.”
The Irish healthcare system and its patients – including those on waiting lists or seeking hard-to-access GP appointments – depend on doctor-mothers to continue to deliver care and they must be supported.
Our next study will explore the experiences of women doctors who are childfree, childless, or have no living children, and probe the perceived impact of their careers on their choices and circumstances. If you would like to find out more, please contact us.
The MPS Foundation’s 2026 grant programme is now open and inviting applications from projects focused on improving the wellbeing of healthcare professionals, teams, and patient safety. Find out more at: www.thempsfoundation.org/
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