Compatibility of Family and Profession: Exclusively a Womens' Problem in Medicine? How Surgeons May Cope

The tension between family and profession is a frequent topic in the medical literature of industrialized countries [1- 8]. While this is most often examined for women intending a demanding professional career in medicine, that emphasis does not reflect that many husbands or partners of female doctors are male doctors [9,10]. Because of this career similarity, there is no objective argument against sharing child care on equal terms. However, this seems to be a special challenge for doctors in training for time-consuming and formally demanding qualifications, such as surgery [1,2,5,8]. This manuscript describes my experience interrupting clinical work for one year of parental leave as a father during surgical training in Germany in 2002 with regard to short- and long-term effects on both parents´ career and the child´s wellbeing.