From clinical rotations to diaper changes: How parents in medical school make it work (2024)

By Anthony DePalma, Laura Ingles and Grace McOmber

“Any time is a good time, because no time is a good time.”

That’s what Stephan Lazar, M.D., said about having a baby in January 2024, when he was in his fourth year of medical school. Lazar wasn’t alone in navigating parenthood during medical school, but he was certainly in the minority.

According to a 2021 National Institutes of Health study, more than 7% of medical students graduate with at least one non-spouse dependent, “the majority of whom are likely children.” But there are no national studies on medical students with kids, and the already isolating nature of early parenthood can make it challenging for students to build connections and find support as they progress through the rigors of medical school.

Nicole Deiorio, M.D., associate dean of student affairs and a mother who had her kids after residency, noted that both medical school and parenthood are demanding, full-time jobs, and a range of resources are available to student-parents at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine.

She added that the Office of Medical Education (OME) recently rewrote the policies around attendance, which clarifies the process for taking time off to deliver and care for children. Students who are nursing have access to a lactation room in the McGlothlin Medical Education Center, which contains supplies donated by a group of Richmond-area women physicians “who feel strongly about supporting our lactating students.” Deiorio encourages any students who have, or plan to have, children during their time at VCU to reach out to the OME any time.

“We know that there’s more to life than becoming a doctor, and we want our students to experience those milestones to the fullest,” she said. “We’re here to help them learn to provide the best care for their patients, their families and themselves.”

At VCU School of Medicine, students across all four years of the M.D. program have found ways to balance exams and clinical rotations with diaper changes and bedtime routines. From nearby parents who help with childcare to spouses pulling double-duty while working from home, each of these students are making it work. They all cited their partners’ sacrifices and unconditional support as a key component to their success as parents in medical school, in addition to their own time management skills, creativity and determination.

When Emily Dunbar, M.D., reflects on the first six months of her son’s life, she remembers the night feedings. She was in her second year of medical school at the time, and since the baby woke up every two to three hours throughout the night, she figured she might as well pull out her study materials when she got up with him.

“I would be breastfeeding him at 3 a.m. while doing [practice exam] questions on my phone,” she said. “What else was I going to do, stare at the ceiling or scroll on social media? You just have to make the most of the time you have.”

Dunbar’s son, Kal-El, was born in the summer of 2021, when classes were still virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That extended time at home allowed her to feel “present and active as a parent” while still doing well in school. Once she was back on campus, despite the long, tiring days, lack of sleep and navigating clinical rotations around her pumping schedule, Dunbar said she succeeded in large part due to her support system at home. Her husband, Jacob — a financial analyst and the associate head coach for the University of Richmond women's tennis team — has coordinated his flexible schedule around supporting Dunbar through medical school and taking care of Kal-El. This meant a lot of bottles between Zoom calls and occasionally strapping the baby into the car seat to join him for tennis practice.

This summer, Dunbar began neurosurgery training at the University of Virginia. When the time came to write her personal statement for residency applications, it was an easy decision to include Jacob and Kal-El.

“For me, they are a big part of who I am,” Dunbar said. “I couldn’t explain myself without them. And I only wanted to pursue a residency with a program who was okay with that and understood that.”

Taylor Roach, M.D. was three months postpartum when she arrived at VCU Medical Center at 6 a.m. for her first clinical rotation. Her now 2-year-old son, Zayn, was born two weeks before the start of her third year of medical school, so she had only missed two rotations during her maternity leave, which she made up during her fourth year. After two years of Zoom classes and a pregnancy spent mostly at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, those first few weeks on the wards were a shock to the system for Roach.

“It was very draining, and I felt like I had no energy,” Roach said, noting that she was still pumping every three hours at the time. “To come into the hospital for 12 hours a day was rough, and I had to really work on my time management.”

Roach’s partner, Rishard, “took the brunt of baby duty” once she started her clinical rotations. She takes over when she gets home in the evenings, she says, giving him a break from the evening routine of dinner, bathtime, and bedtime. They're on a waitlist for local daycare, which she says will be a welcome reprieve once she begins her surgery residency training in July and they become a two-income household.

Roach, who matched into VCU’s surgery residency, plans to reapply to OB-GYN programs during the next match cycle. Her own complicated birth experience with Zayn, which included preeclampsia, postpartum hemorrhaging, and a blood transfusion, solidified her interest in women’s health.

“I really saw the patient side of things,” she said. “Given the increased mortality rate of Black women, I felt like I could be very valuable on the clinical side, having that perspective.”

The first time Stephan Lazar, M.D. introduced his daughter to his classmates, she was nestled into the crook of his arm during the Class of 2024’s Match Day celebration. Baby Iris was less than two months old, and it was one of the family’s first times venturing out since her birth.

“She’s my good luck charm,” said Lazar, who found out that day that he’d matched into VCU’s interventional radiology residency, his top choice. “I thought she would bring me good luck, and she did.”

Lazar, 36, says that for him and his wife, Katie, becoming parents during his last year of medical school worked out well. Weeks of banked vacation time and non-clinical electives allowed for a lot of time at home, and he says the previous year and a half of clinical rotations gave him a leg up as a new dad. His time in pediatrics made him a “diaper-changing expert,” and he felt confident in his understanding of developmental milestones and feeding schedules.

As for how parenthood has impacted his perspective as a medical student, Lazar says Iris has given him a new appreciation for what the families of his patients experience.

“Loving her is different from any other feeling, and once I returned to my clinical rotations, I felt like I had a better sense of empathy for my patients,” he said. “It’s just deepening that empathy for families with loved ones who are really sick.

Sierra Rouse was 22 years old and 37 weeks pregnant when she took the MCAT, the entrance exam for medical school. Now 28 and in her final year, she’s a mom of two boys — Isaac, her “cautious, matter of fact” 6-year-old and his “rough-and-tumble" 3-year-old brother, Jonas.

After taking a few gap years between college and medical school, Rouse worried that she would fall behind as a student. But she found that her new skills as a mom were more translatable than she’d anticipated.

“Having kids kind of gives you a sense of being able to prioritize things really well, with good time management,” Rouse said. “I don't think parenting makes medical school that much harder, but I do think being in medical school makes parenting that much harder.”

Rouse and her husband, Dylan, don’t have family nearby, and she relies on him to do a lot of the heavy lifting at home. She says she's also had critical support from her friends at school who have kids, and from the School of Medicine. When creating her schedule, she says the Office of Medical Education worked with her to ensure that her rotations were within easy driving distance, to increase her chances of making it home before the boys went to bed at 7 p.m.

“You can get sent anywhere for clerkships, and it was helpful to keep me close, which I really appreciated,” she said. “You don’t get that time back, being away from your children.”

While balancing school with her family hasn’t been easy, Rouse says the sacrifices have been worth it, and she wants her kids to grow up seeing that personal fulfillment can come from both a family and a career.

“I have a job that’s required a lot of time away, but it’s an important job, it helps people, it makes me feel fulfilled and I can provide a nice life for them,” she said. “I hope it helps them see all the different things they can do.”

Before each of Courtney Hughes’ prenatal check-ups last year, she consulted her class's group chat to find out which of her classmates would be rotating into her appointment. However, she says she drew a hard line when it came to delivering her son, Elliott, at VCU Medical Center in October 2023.

“I had to refuse having medical students in the room with me while I was delivering, because they were also my friends,” said Hughes, now in her third year. “I was like, ‘I need our friendship to stay as it was before.’”

Hughes and her husband, Patrick, married during the five years Hughes took off before beginning medical school. She says having kids was always the plan, and nearby family support made having Elliott during medical school realistic for them.

“My husband and I sat down and looked at the next 10 years of our lives,” Hughes said. “I’m never going to be less busy than I am now, and we’re also never going to be more supported.”

Since becoming a mom, Hughes said she finds parenting to be “the easy part” of her daily life, and losing the little free time she used to have as a student has been a challenge. But the all-encompassing nature of medical school meant she was already learning to reorganize her priorities, which prepared her for the shift in identity that comes with becoming a parent.

“A lot of stuff in my life previously took a backseat to medical school,” Hughes said. “This is the first time something else, my son, comes before medical school.”

The White Coat Ceremony, which marks first-year students’ matriculation into the School of Medicine, is a highly anticipated rite of passage for first year medical students. For Deaquan Nichols, the ceremony came with extra emotions –– his daughter, Nyree, was born just the night before he walked across the stage.

“I can’t even put into words how I felt,” Nichols said. “Looking back, it was just an overwhelming amount of joy.”

Over the past academic year Nichols has navigated the long and consuming hours of medical school and raising Nyree with his fiancée and high school sweetheart, Samantha Perez. It’s a balance he said requires “empathy and efficiency.”

“There are times when I come home very tired, but I have to be present for my daughter,” Nichols said. “And it's the same when I come to school or when I start treating patients. Their needs come before mine.”

At only 21 years old, Nichols is the youngest of his class cohort. He said embarking on both parenthood and medical school while still "figuring out how to be an adult" has been a challenge, but he and Perez are figuring it out together. The couple has been together for six years, and Nichols says having her by his side has been invaluable to his success so far as a medical student and as a father.

“To have that growth with another person is a really beautiful thing,” Nichols said. “We’ve just spiraled around each other. All these great memories, we’ll tie back to each other.”

As Nyree grows up watching her dad achieve his career goals, Nichols says he hopes she sees the joy and pride Nichols finds in medicine and finds interests that she is equally passionate about.

“Every single morning, I wake up and see her sleeping, and that’s my motivation to keep going,” Nichols said. “Knowing the type of future I’m going to provide for my daughter and knowing it's going to be better than what either one of us had is so rewarding.”

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A version of this story was originally published by VCU School of Medicine