Marriage and career issues

Sir,

Being postgraduate residents in anaesthesiology at a prestigious tertiary health care institute demands a very busy and erratic schedule. It is very difficult to think about marriage in such a situation, but everybody in the family is eagerly waiting to hear our wedding bells.

People often talk about compatibility, maturity and understanding in a life partner, but we feel that profession also plays an important role. As medicos, we would all prefer to have a medico as our life- partner. Life for a male anaesthesiologist with a non-medico partner would be comfortable as she is not obliged to be available for anytime duty calls, unlike a medico and there would be no patient-related discussions at home; however, he would be handicapped without having a person from his fraternity who would be in a better position to understand his stress and professional problems like conflicts with co-workers and superiors, on-call-related stress symptoms and low organisational justice[1] and help to tackle them. Being residents in anaesthesiology department, we feel that anaesthesiologist girls, given a choice between medical professionals would certainly choose a surgeon over any other speciality. The perks of a surgeon being a life-partner are many. We spend most of our time in operating rooms (ORs) and we have seen love blossoming in ORs. A surgeon generally understands the anaesthesiologist very well. A surgeon-anaesthesiologist couple can end up working in the same set-up and can spend more time together. They can discuss cases together and can help each other professionally. An anaesthesiologist wife does not have to explain her absence at home on important occasions because her understanding surgeon partner would have already managed and covered up for her.

We believe that a male anaesthesiologist would prefer a surgeon as his wife. Though surgeon and anaesthesiologist are always compared to 'Tom and Jerry', they are really incomplete without each other. The dictum both in professional and personal life for an anaesthesiologist-surgeon couple would be 'We fight but we cannot live without each other'. To be specific, life with an otorhinolaryngologist or ophthalmologist wife would be peaceful, both having adequate time for each other; but with an obstetrician as a wife, life would definitely not be that easy because she certainly will have no time for herself and her family. Life with a general surgeon as a wife would fall in between these two extremes. With an anaesthesiologist wife, life would be interesting, especially for sharing and helping with professional and academic issues, visiting various tourist places together in the name of conferences and much more. However, for peaceful living, a medico or a non-medico, a clinician or non-clinician, a surgeon or a physician, one should be able to balance things well between one's professional career and personal life.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.