Maternity, paternity and academic life: impacts and views of parents who are studying medicine

Abstract:

Introduction:

Personal aspects such as maternity and paternity can represent major academic and professional challenges, as they require time, emotional involvement, attention and care. Mainly in the medical schools, characterized by the extensive study routine and workload, this situation can be even more impactful.

Objective:

To assess the impact of parenthood on the academic performance of medical students, as well as to analyze their main views, motivations and challenges during medical training.

Method:

Cross-sectional, quantitative-qualitative study with a descriptive and analytical approach that evaluated the profile and perceptions of 85 parents who are studying medicine in Brazil. A semi-structured virtual questionnaire was used containing single-choice sociodemographic questions and evaluation of views using the Likert scale. In order to assess the impact of parenthood on academic performance, the academic performance of some of the respondents from one of the institutions evaluated was considered for comparison with random and unidentified samples of childless students from the same institution.

Result:

Students are clear and do not regret their personal choices (93%), are proud to be parent students (93%) and emphasize the importance and essentiality of the support network (88%). When asked about academic performance, the parents who are medical students express limitations in the compatibility of personal and professional responsibilities (42%) and report that parental duties compromise their performance at medical school (53%). In this context, however, our data indicate that the academic performance of mothers and fathers is similar to that of childless students.

Conclusion:

Medical students with children, despite reporting limitations in the ability to combine personal and academic responsibilities, do not regret their choices and are proud to exercise both roles. Furthermore, their academic performance is similar to that of childless students, despite believing that parental duties compromise their academic performance. They highlight the essential role played by the support network for performing academic activities and these perceptions between variables such as gender, marital status and academic cycle are distinctively uniform.

Keywords:
Undergraduate Medical Training; Medical Education; Medical Students; Family Planning; Student Health