Maggie's Farm

Agree with LaShawn about that female wanting nursing breaks during her medical licensing exam. Life isn't fair. If you are a mom, your babies require you to make career tradeoffs.

Barrister or Bird Dog, you could have a field day with the logical fallacies bursting out of this case--and would do a better job than I can.

But, speaking as a female with her share of education, professional experience, and as a mom, here is my take on it:

I wouldn't want a doctor who expected me to give them extra time on exams (as this woman already has for "ADHD") or to nurse her baby.

She could have pumped extra milk and frozen it in the weeks before the exam to make sure that her baby was alright. Then she could have pumped or nursed her baby during the 45 minute breaks allocated. If she got mastitis? It's not fatal, and not certain that she would have gotten it. Baby would have doubtless been unhappy for the two days, but presumably the mom has already come to terms with her own decision not to postpone her career progress for baby. To make the rest of us accomodate her feeding choices (even if I happen to believe nursing is best) is not fair to the other students. There are many personal priorities in life that some people would consider of equal priority to nursing one's child (tho I can't immediately think of any) and I have to say that if one can't dedicate oneself for two days straight to one's chosen profession, one isn't committed enough to it. Medicine is not like clerical work or other pink collar mediocre jobs that everyone acknowledges to be good "mommy" jobs.

In the medical school adjacent to my own grad school, one of the few safeguards for the health of future patients of the affirmative action med school admits were the dreaded licensing exams. No getting around those. My friends who had got into med school on merit, and had much lower scholarships, took a certain grim satisfaction in the high percentage of affirmative action admits who regularly flunked. Another patient saved from an incompetent M.D, they would comment when the results came out.

Being a mom entitles you to no extra favors. Ask the brave female soldiers who serve overseas. If you want a mommy friendly job, be a clerical worker, or an academic, or a teacher, or (gasp) a nurse. Or go into any profession that God calls you to and gives you the talent for, work as hard as any man until you have your family, but do the right thing and stay home full time for a few years when you have your babies. If you whine about how unfair that is, consider how "unfair" it is that most men die young from health conditions that afflict them worse (or at least younger) than most women, often exacerbated by working long hours as providers for wives and children they adore. We all give up and receive so much in the name of love, but it should be a personal, private equation, not a demand presented to "society."

I wish that this woman had had the medical knowledge and the character to have timed starting her family a little better, so that she did not have to ask for special favors. She should take off and do a research fellowship while her babies are nursing, then go 100% into being a doctor. You can't ask for special treatment and expect to be equally respected.