Table 2.

Circumstances in which a medical career is likely to affect personal relationships

Working in rural or underserved areas—these physicians often work extremely long days and have grueling on-call schedules that give them little time to engage in relationship or family life Settling in communities where locum physicians are hard to find and physicians are unable to go on vacation with their families or to take sabbatical leave Especially demanding branches of medicine, such as neonatology, transplant surgery, high-risk obstetrics, and neurosurgery—these physicians have little control over their professional lives, their work is less predictable, and family plans get disrupted Incurring huge educational debts during medical training, causing a physician to “moonlight” to try to catch up, which diminishes time with a loved one Having 2 or more families from previous and current marriages to support, and working “extra hard” affects intimacy Working “double time” to support members of extended families outside this country—a circumstance in which some international medical graduates and physicians from ethnic minority groups may find themselves