Hi all,
Im at a cross roads and Ive tried finding threads by people in similar situations but I haven't been able to find the answers.
Im currently studying Nursing (in Australia), entering my second year and I've now decided that I want to study medicine. I've had the urge to do it since high school but I always ruled it out as an option because I'd heard that doctors don't have lives and wait too long to have children and their biological clock runs out (I'm a woman) and I'm very maternal and want to have kids, and when I have them I will want to spend time with them – not just 6 months, but at least until they're in kindergarten.
I'm 20 years old now and I can either transfer into the first year of a undergraduate medicine degree (6 years) beginning next year, or finish my nursing degree and try to enter post-graduate medicine (4 years). Post-graduate would be quickest but the entry test is quite hard and covers some pretty odd areas which I haven't studied before e.g social sciences and physics. Both of these will put me at around 26/27 when I finish, and Id like to start having children at least before i'm 31.
If I took time off straight after medical school, or after my intern year, and by time off I mean 4 or 5 years, would I become unemployable? Would I never be considered for a residency?
Another option is to complete the shortest residency I can. I don't know what that would be. After residency try find part time work, I'm happy to work rurally. If i did this, would I be able to do a surgical residency later in life.
How do other people juggle motherhood and parenting? Is there another option I cant see?
Im sorry if some of my questions are silly, the medical career structure seems so confusing from the outside.
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