Commitment to a career in Medicine

Female medical students are freezing their eggs and delaying having children so they can carry on with their career. I looked on student BMJ and found this interesting article; 8 out of 10 medical students would have their eggs collected and frozen to postpone motherhood for the sake of their career.

I think the main issue with this article is the fact that even though the students are collecting the eggs when they are still fertile, by the time they do have a baby their bodies will have aged and will be less biologically adapted to support the needs of that child. After all there is a reason why females are more fertile as a young adult.

Medicine is a challenging and demanding career choice to follow and does come with sacrifices such as free time and starting a family. This is something I have considered myself, I know that many successful doctors have been able to dedicate time to both their career and their family and I hope to do the same one day.

When I read this article it caught my attention because it is something which needs to be taken into consideration when committing to study Medicine. Once graduated from medical school, students then become working as a junior doctors and go on to choosing a speciality, which takes many years of hard work. Therefore as a newly qualified doctor it would be difficult to take time away to start a family until they have a stable career.