Female physician and pregnancy- effect of the amended German maternity protection act on female doctors' careers.

Puhahn-Schmeiser, Barbara; Hennel, Eva K; Gross, Christiane; Raestrup, Heike; Bühren, Astrid; Mangler, Mandy (2023). Female physician and pregnancy- effect of the amended German maternity protection act on female doctors' careers. Innovative surgical sciences, 8(1), pp. 23-28. de Gruyter 10.1515/iss-2022-0024

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OBJECTIVES

In Germany, the 2018 amended Maternity Protection Act frequently leads to fundamental restrictions for female physicians, especially surgeons, and now even also for students impeding the progress of their careers. Our goal was to assess the current situation for pregnant female physicians and students, respectively, and their perspective on this amendment regarding their career path.

METHODS

A nationwide survey was conducted in Germany from December 2020 to February 2021. The questionnaire included 790 female physicians and students who were pregnant after the inception of the amended Act. Those women pregnant after the beginning of the corona pandemic were excluded.

RESULTS

The survey revealed that two thirds of female physicians worked a maximum of 50% in their previous professional activity as soon as they reported pregnancy. Amongst medical students this amounted up to 72%. 18% of the female physicians and 17% of the female medical students respectively could not follow the sense of these restrictions. 44% of female medical physicians and 33% of female students felt their career impeded. This led up to 43% amongst female medical doctors and 53% amongst female medical students, respectively, who were concerned to announce their pregnancy. As a consequence, pregnancies were reported at 12 weeks in female physicians compared to 19 weeks in medical students.

CONCLUSIONS

Analyses of the current survey revealed that a relevant number of female physicians and medical students felt impeded in their career path through the application of the amended Maternity Act.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Medical Education > Institute for Medical Education
04 Faculty of Medicine > Medical Education > Institute for Medical Education > Assessment and Evaluation Unit (AAE)

UniBE Contributor:

Hennel, Eva Kathrin

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 370 Education
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health

ISSN:

2364-7485

Publisher:

de Gruyter

Language:

English

Submitter:

Pubmed Import

Date Deposited:

18 Oct 2023 13:26

Last Modified:

18 Oct 2023 16:30

Publisher DOI:

10.1515/iss-2022-0024

PubMed ID:

37842192

Uncontrolled Keywords:

career female medical student female physician maternity protection act pregnancy surgery

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/187224

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/187224

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