Parental Support: Policies In Surgery Training
Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast
Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
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Summary
In surgical residency, cases are long, expectations are high, and patient care always comes first. But then you become a parent, and suddenly you’re navigating pregnancy risk, parental leave, and lactation logistics in a system that wasn’t built for it. We’ve made meaningful progress over the past decade, but too many trainees still face becoming parents in residency without clear, consistent support.
In this episode, join Dr. Kara Button with Dr. Arielle Kanters and Dr. Sarah Shubeck as they ask: How do we build a surgical workforce that’s skilled, resilient—and genuinely supported as surgeon-parents? They’ll share practical, evidence-based steps programs can take to make parental support the norm—not the exception.
Hosts:
Kara Button, DO — General Surgery Resident, Maine Medical Center; Behind the Knife Surgical Education Fellow
Arielle Kanters, MD — Colorectal Surgeon; Associate Program Director, Colorectal Surgery Fellowship, Cleveland Clinic
Dr. Sarah Shubeck, MD — Assistant Professor of Surgery; Breast Surgical Oncologist, University of Chicago
References:
Bamdad MC, Hughes DT, Englesbe M. Safe and supported pregnancy: A call to action for surgery chairs and program directors: A call to action for surgery chairs and program directors. Ann Surg. 2022;275(1):e1-e2. doi:10.1097/SLA.0000000000005181 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34433187/
Castillo-Angeles M, Atkinson RB, Easter SR, et al. Pregnancy during surgical training: Are residency programs truly supporting their trainees? J Surg Educ. 2022;79(6):e92-e102. doi:10.1016/j.jsurg.2022.06.011 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35842402/
Castillo-Angeles M, Smink DS, Rangel EL. Perspectives of general surgery program directors on paternity leave during surgical training. JAMA Surg. 2022;157(2):105-111. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2021.6223 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34851404/
Kanters AE, Shubeck SP. The importance of parental leave and lactation support for surgeons. Clin Colon Rectal Surg. 2023;36(5):333-337. doi:10.1055/s-0043-1764288 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37564351/
Kling SM, Slashinski MJ, Green RL, Taylor GA, Dunham P, Kuo LE. Parental leave experiences for the non-childbearing general surgery resident parent: A qualitative analysis. Surgery. 2024;176(5):1320-1326. doi:10.1016/j.surg.2024.04.035 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38910045/
Mann H, Glazer T. Current state of safe pregnancy policies for the US surgical trainee. OTO Open. 2024;8(3):e172. doi:10.1002/oto2.172 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39036338/
Rangel EL, Smink DS, Castillo-Angeles M, et al. Pregnancy and motherhood during surgical training. JAMA Surg. 2018;153(7):644-652. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2018.0153 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29562068/
Rangel EL, Castillo-Angeles M, Easter SR, et al. Incidence of infertility and pregnancy complications in US female surgeons. JAMA Surg. 2021;156(10):905-915. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2021.3301 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34319353/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/science/doctors-surgery-motherhood-medical-school.html
https://behindtheknife.org/podcast/family-leave-during-surgical-training-a-discussion-with-abs-president-dr-jo-buyske
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Behind the Knife, the Sur thank our partner, JOMI. |
| 0:25.7 | With over 300 high-quality, expertly narrated surgical videos, JOMI is an indispensable |
| 0:31.4 | resource for residents and students to prep for the OR. |
| 0:34.6 | Attendings and residents from Stanford, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins depend on JOMI's up-to-date |
| 0:39.6 | peer-review cases. Virtually scrub in at Jomi.com to improve your OR prep today. |
| 0:46.0 | Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Behind the Knife. I'm Kara Button, a general surgery |
| 0:51.0 | resident and Behind the Knife Surgical Education Fellow. Today we're diving into a topic that has been receiving long overdue resident, and behind the knife surgical education fellow. |
| 0:57.4 | Today we're diving into a topic that has been receiving long overdue attention, |
| 0:59.9 | and that's parental support in surgical training. |
| 1:03.9 | Surgical trainees are accustomed to putting their personal needs aside, |
| 1:09.2 | they manage long hours, high expectations, and have a truly deep commitment to patient care, |
| 1:12.1 | but when trainees become parents, that landscape shifts. |
| 1:17.2 | Research shows that childbearing surgeons face higher rates of pregnancy-related complications, |
| 1:23.3 | including infertility, pregnancy loss, preterm birth, and non-elective C-sections. And the mental health impact of being a parent during surgical training can be substantial, especially when |
| 1:28.3 | programs lack meaningful support. And if you hadn't had a chance to listen to the Behind |
| 1:33.0 | the Knife episode from 2021, where this topic has talked about a little bit more, I encourage you |
| 1:37.4 | to do so, and we'll link that in the show notes. Over the past decades, studies have increasingly |
| 1:43.0 | highlighted the unique difficulties that |
| 1:45.0 | surgeon parents encounter. |
| 1:46.9 | And while prior research has focused mostly on childbearing parents navigating pregnancy |
| 1:51.0 | and recovery during training, more recent studies underscore that non-childbearing parents are |
| 1:55.9 | negatively impacted by the lack of support. |
... |
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