Perspectives of General Surgery Program Directors on Paternity Leave During Surgical Training

Abstract

Importance: Although men are increasingly involved in childrearing, little is known about paternity leave in surgical residency. Conflict between professional and family duties contribute to burnout and decreased career satisfaction for surgeons of both sexes. With men more likely than women to have children during their clinical years of surgical training, understanding the issues surrounding paternity leave is imperative to ensuring the longevity of our workforce.

Objective: To explore surgical program directors' perspectives on the challenges of providing paternity leave.

Design, setting, and participants: This qualitative descriptive study of transcripts collected from semistructured interviews of US surgical program directors was performed from October 2018 to June 2019. Program directors were selected using purposive-stratified criterion-based sampling. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim, with emergent themes identified using content analysis.

Exposure: Paternity leave.

Main outcomes and measures: Program directors' perspectives on paternity leave were categorized into common themes.

Results: A total of 40 US general surgery program directors were interviewed (28 male [70%]; mean [SD] age, 49.7 [6.8] years; 36 [90%] were university-based programs). Twenty (50%) reported providing paternity leave of 1-week duration. Five major themes were identified: (1) paternity leave policies are poorly defined by many programs and require self-initiation by residents; (2) residents often do not take the full amount of time offered for leave; (3) stigma against male residents taking parental leave is common and may be even greater than that facing women taking maternity leave; (4) paternity leave has little to no impact on colleagues' workload owing to the brevity of time taken; and (5) men desire longer leave than what they are currently offered and wish to receive equal time off compared with childbearing parents.

Conclusions and relevance: Surgical program directors report male residents take brief paternity leave despite a desire for more time off, which may be influenced by fear of stigma and surgical culture that avoids handing off work, even for short periods of time. A cultural shift toward supporting family planning as a normal part of young adult life, rather than a medical condition to be accommodated, is necessary to promote life balance and behaviors that will sustain a long career in surgery. Implementation of defined leave policies at individual programs for the nonchildbearing parent is critical to make parental leave socially acceptable among surgical residents.