Internal Medicine physicians’ struggle with family planning and infertility

Isa Egger, Christa Nater, Jarmila Zdanowicz, Karolina Kublickiene, Sven Streit, Jeanne Moor

Keywords: Internal Medicine physicians, family planning, infertility

Background:

Physicians in Europe are more likely to experience family planning conflicts than other university graduates. Furthermore, literature from the U.S. suggests that female physicians have higher infertility rates than the general population. However, literature on these topics for Switzerland, a country with a well-funded healthcare system, is lacking.

Research questions:

We aimed to determine the prevalence of infertility and age at birth of first child among Swiss female Internal Medicine (IM) physicians. Furthermore, we determined the intent to delay having children among medical students and IM physicians.

Method:

We used a cross-sectional web-based anonymous survey, which was distributed by e-mail among Swiss IM physicians via IM societies and hospital departments. Medical students at the University of Bern were contacted by the medical faculty. Data about the following questions were collected and analysed by descriptive statistics: Demographics, self-reported infertility, age at birth of first child, and delaying having children.

Results:

This study included 682 physicians (59% women) and 321 medicals students (70% women). Median age of physicians was 32 (interquartile range (IQR) 30-42) years and of medical students 24 (IQR 23-25) years. Among 148 female physicians who had tried to conceive, 41 (28%) fulfilled the criteria of infertility. Median age at birth of first child was 31 years (IQR: 29-35). Among those physicians who already have children, 42% of female and 22% of male physicians delayed having children (p = < 0.001). Among medical students, 63% of female and 44% of male students are planning to delay having children (p = 0.013).

Conclusions:

Swiss physicians’ estimated infertility prevalence is roughly twice as high as the general population’s (28% vs. 10-15%), possibly due to delaying having children. Our results suggest that infertility awareness, more flexibility for family planning and workplace restructuring in medicine in Switzerland is required to accommodate physicians’ family planning needs.

Points for discussion:

What could (further) reasons for the high infertility prevalence of female physicians be?

How could medical training be restructured so that physicians can follow through with their family planning earlier instead of delaying?

What are the experiences in family planning among physicians in your country?

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