Striving to be an Excellent Healthcare Professional and Excellent Parent: Exploring the Experiences of UK Doctors and Nurses

A broad issue in retention of healthcare professionals (HCPs) is that they experience difficulties in maintaining equilibrium between their professional and personal life, which disproportionately affects parents and intersects with gender, profession and career grade.1,2 Understanding the facilitators and challenges for this group is crucial to support and retain this future healthcare workforce. Thus, this study sought to explore the dual role of HCPs who are parents and how these experiences impact on career pathways and multiple facets of wellbeing.

This study is underpinned by a social constructivist approach. It was a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews incorporating a narrative inquiry approach for data collection. The narrative inquiry approach captured 20 meaningful and purposeful stories from doctors and nurses about their experiences of their dual role as HCP-Parent between June 2021 and June 2022. All interviews were undertaken virtually and lasted between 44 and 75 min long.

HCPs expressed that their workplace roles changed and or they changed speciality/career when they become parents. There was a negative organisational culture around working less than full time, and this impacted upon career advancement. Organisational changes were often not discussed with HCPs prior to implementation, which impacted HCPs' personal and professional life. HCP-Parents reported their dual roles often clashed, which had implications on their health and wellbeing. For some HCP-Parents, their dual role offered a new insight and perspective in their workplace role. HCP-Parents relied upon informal support from work colleagues and friends to help them navigate the challenges of their dual role.

REFERENCES

1. Lavergne, M. R., Gonzalez, A., Ahuja, M. A., Hedden, L., & McCracken, R. (2019). The relationship between gender, parenthood and practice intentions among family medicine residents: cross-sectional analysis of national Canadian survey data. Hum Resour Health, 17(1), 67. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-019-0396-y

2. Rosenthal, J., Wanat, K. A., & Samimi, S. (2019). Striving for balance: a review of female dermatologists' perspective on managing a dual-career household. Int J Women's Dermatol, 6(1), 43–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijwd.2019.08.008