Seeking Balance: The Complexity of Choice-Making Among Academic Surgeons

Abstract

Understanding how members of an academic department of surgery navigate the balance between their personal and professional worlds may provide new insights for other disciplines seeking to enhance the development of the next generation of academics.

Surgical culture in transition: gender matters and generation counts

“…27,35 Previous studies have documented the desire, of both men and women, for more time devoted to their personal lives. 2,5,6,20 The current findings enhance this prior research by delving deeper into the reasons and motivations of academic surgeons in striving for this change. Overall, it is striking that participants felt that the change in gender balance has had a positive influence on the culture of the department.…”

“…In the subsequent 7 years, 24 full-time faculty were hired with an equal distribution of men and women, bringing the total number of women in the department from 2 to 14. In a prior publication, 20 we reported the complexity of making choices as experienced by these new recruits as they tried to establish a balance between their personal and professional lives. The present paper focuses on how the new recruits perceived the change in the gender balance and how the different priorities of their generation influenced their attitudes and behaviours.…”

More on Faculty Issues in Academic Medicine

“…In this issue of the journal, Brown et al 1 report the results of a phenomenological study of work-life balance. They used in-depth, individual, semistructured interviews with academic surgeons of both sexes to explore how these individuals sought balance between competing personal and professional priorities.…”

An Examination of How Women and Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Minorities Experience Barriers on Biomedical Research and Medical Programs

“…Choosing a career in academic medicine is often influenced by factors like the training environment and interaction with faculty, mentors, role models, or family (Borges, Navarro, & Grover, 2012). Balancing personal and professional lives requires making value-based choices, setting boundaries, making trade-offs, and taking cyclic decisions based on multiple life events, such as completing residency, developing longterm relationships, childbearing and pursuing career options (Brown, Fluit, Lent, & Herbert, 2011). Women surgeons often struggle to achieve this balance with their decision to have children, and fear criticism for their decisions.…”

“…Women surgeons often struggle to achieve this balance with their decision to have children, and fear criticism for their decisions. However, women who value quality family time often set discrete boundaries between work and family and use strategies like hiring outside help for household work and childcare (Brown et al, 2011).…”