Can Busy Moms Really Do Locum Work Without Having Mom Guilt? #471 Part 2

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In this episode, we answer a question from our listener who is considering a locums position but is having mom guilt and wants to know how other women do it. Dr. Renée opens up about her journey working exclusively as a locums doctor while still maximizing her presence at home. If you're struggling with parental guilt this conversation is for you.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

If you missed the last segment, Nii and I talked about whether or not the 80-hour work week is realistic for people in residency who are then transitioning into attendinghood. If you missed that segment, go back and take a listen. And right now we are going to be talking about motherhood and locums. Dr Nii, what say you? What's going on?

Introducing Motherhood and Locums

Speaker 2 0:28

you. What's going on? All right, dr Renee. So we got a question from Instagram. This is a question from someone who's been following our podcast for a significant period of time, so let's jump right into this. It says, hey, do both you and your wife do locums, because I'm considering a travel position slash locum, but I'm having mom guilt and I'm not sure how other women do it. I've read articles and I know there's plenty of moms who do it, but just wondering if you have any feedback, would appreciate hearing about your experience. I know I've heard a lot from your perspective, but wondering about it from mom's perspective, how she may do it I think they're referring to you.

Speaker 2 1:05

So, we got this question while we're in Ghana. I told them we were going to answer it, but we ain't recording Ghana, so we ain't answer it. You like to hear it? Here we go, boom, so you go ahead and answer it? Do we do locums? How do you do locums as a mom and do you have?

Speaker 1 1:22

mommy guilt? No, I do not have mommy guilt. So I've been doing locums for quite some time, exclusively locums, as of the time what? That was 2016. So I was pregnant at the time when we started doing locums exclusively. And, yeah, I mean, I guess I would need a little bit more information so that I could give you a little more advice tailored to whatever your situation is.

Dr. Renee's Locums Experience

Speaker 1 1:52

For me, I am a mom, but I'm also married, so I, you know, there there is that dynamic which I think makes a difference. So, doing locums, I'm able to stay home for the most part, and then I work one weekend a month. That's just how I decide to do it. You can do it however you want. And then my husband he works more days than I do in the month, but that's the way that we do it. We switch off, so if I'm working, he's not working. If he's working, then I'm not working, and that's the way it's worked and I really love it. It allows me to spend a lot of time with my kids. Yes, I am traveling, so it is not a local locums assignment. I've been traveling for since 2016 and haven't stopped since, and it's been really helpful.

Speaker 2 2:46

What's the farthest that you've traveled?

Speaker 1 2:48

The farthest I've traveled is probably about three hours, three, four hours.

Speaker 2 2:54

Currently, currently right now.

Speaker 1 2:56

Now it's like an hour and a half. Yeah, now it's like an hour and a half, so it's not bad, but I stay over.

Speaker 2 3:02

So what does that mean? Explain that to the people.

Speaker 1 3:04

So that basically means that I start my shift on Friday evenings at five o'clock and I finish my shift on Monday mornings at seven 30. So I am not home. So I might as well be, you know, a plane ride away, right Cause I'm not home, right so you got a hotel, you got all that stuff, gotcha. You know, you and your work husband X, y and Z. I told you don't make me pull up on you. Okay, don't make me pull up on you. I know you got a work wife.

Speaker 2 3:36

My work wife got hands, so you're going to pull up. Go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 1 3:45

Any who needs. Don't worry, because my work husband got mad muscle. Yeah, look at your face. Look at your face now. You don't like that joke, right? It's not as funny, it's not? What is it? Ain't no fun when the rabbit got the gun Anywho, but you can do it, however.

Speaker 1 4:06

You can do it, however you can do it however you want. I think what I like about the locums life the most is that there is that flexibility. Right, I think I actually have. So I will say this I never worked a nine to five, or what we call a full time. How about this? How about the job? Hold on, hold on. I got to say this. I got to say this. I got to say this. I got something to say. I've never worked a full time job while I was a mother. I do have to say that I think that the amount of guilt mommy guilt that I would have had as a full time OB would have been much much greater than what I'm doing now as a locums.

Speaker 2 4:58

Because her question is about mommy guilt. Hold on a second. Let me speak up. Yeah, so the mommy guilt that you have. You said that you would have more mommy guilt if you were working full time and not a laborer, right? Yeah, okay, why Explain that? What kind of things would you be thinking about? Let me get it out.

Minimizing Mommy Guilt Through Flexibility

Speaker 1 5:17

What kind of things would you be processing in your mind during that time? No-transcript even got up in the morning and back home after my kids fell asleep, and I don't like that because for me that's, I might as well be away because I'm not seeing them anyway. Right, I just know that they are there and in the same house with me at some point in time, a few hours, a few hours a day. But I don't like the idea of you know consistently waking up before my kids, not seeing them off to school, you know, and then coming home and potentially them being asleep already.

Speaker 2 6:08

I just I don't like that. I think the one thing to consider also is like I didn't have any plans of slowing down at all at that point also. So there's a strong likelihood that you have that happening twice, where you have kids who are very like, the likelihood of them seeing both of their parents in the morning or seeing them in the evening time. You know it's going to be varied right, the consistency probably won't be there and stuff. So there was a high chance also that we may have to incorporate someone in like a babysitter or nanny. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1 6:43

So for me, I just felt like I didn't want a nanny. You know, there's nothing wrong with having a nanny, but I didn't want a nanny in that, not for that, right, if I was going to have somebody help me with my kids, that's fine, but I would want someone who is just kind of there literally helping me, right, not someone being me, right, I think, helping. So, for example, right, there was a point at which we did have a babysitter. Right, we had a babysitter. She would come to the house even though I was home, would come to the house even though I was home. She was helping me, right, because I had two kids, one of which I was homeschooling and the other one who needed just extra attention because he had speech delay and all of this stuff. So she was actually helping me. So I was able to put my attention towards the homeschooling for those hours that I was homeschooling, but I was never so far removed that I wasn't able to give the other one the attention that he needed as well. So she was able to help me, kind of reel him in and just make sure that he's not necessarily interfering with the homeschooling with the other one and keeping him entertained, making sure that he's getting his, you know, all of the things that he needed from therapy.

Speaker 1 8:11

Like that's that was helping me, that wasn't being me right, like she wasn't being the mom, she was being the helper, and so that's that. For me, was important to have that. I didn't want to have my kids woken up by someone else, carted around, you know, taken to school, carted around to the extracurricular activities by someone else, and then me at the end of the day, go well, how was your day? What'd you do all day? And not have been a part of that. I just didn't want that as my life, you know. So for me, I think I would have had more mommy guilt if our life looked that way than what it looks like right now, which is listen, I'm gone for a weekend, you'll be fine, because most days out of the month I'm actually home, so I don't have any guilt over that.

Speaker 2 8:59

Hot dogs and beans when you go.

Helping vs. Being: Childcare Philosophy

Speaker 1 9:01

Whatever, it's okay, they can eat a weekend, a weekend of junk food, is not going to kill nobody, as long as they don't end up in the hospital, they are good. They are good as long as they don't have appendicitis and end up in Kumasi. What are you talking about? Come on now. That's the appendicitis combination. Was it beans and what I don't know? But Kumasi is definitely in there, so, but yeah, that.

Speaker 2 9:33

I think Okay, so back to her question. Back to her question. So so I know a little bit about her experiences. And now the kids, I think at this point now are like they're in that five range, six range, seven-year-old range and stuff Like how long can you say mommy, guilt and all that stuff? How long can you use all that stuff? Like I mean, this is not I'm being devil's advocate and I'm playing a little bit, but after a while isn't there like come on now, listen, like you got to get back to work. You know what I'm saying. Like, isn't there thoughts?

Speaker 1 10:09

about that. You want to make that money. He's like listen, come on yo.

Speaker 2 10:14

You just want to put you want to put this ox out. They get older, you know, like because the kids are older now. The kids are older now. Relatively now yes, yes, like, let's say for example you would you consider taking on more hours?

Speaker 1 10:33

So with my kids being six and eight, potentially, yeah, right, like now that they're six and eight, they're in school full time, right, six and eight, they're in school full time, right. That's a little bit of a different story, but even then I would want to make sure that my schedule isn't so overburdened with work that I'm not missing so much, like today. For example, I volunteered for their picture day Right To kind of help, you know, keep the kids preoccupied after their pictures were taken right, that better look good.

Speaker 1 11:09

Let me tell you something. Your son, your son, his listen that class picture he was sitting there like this.

Speaker 1 11:15

He was going like this. I'm like come on, boy, stop, stop. He's like this this is how his class picture looks. His individual picture looks good, but his class picture he's like this this is how his class picture looks. His individual picture looks good, but his class picture he looks like this. So you got to see it on YouTube to see what I'm doing, if y'all are listening. So, yeah, I'm able to volunteer for that. Tomorrow I'm going to be volunteering for our other son's picture day. So I want to be able to do things like that. I need that flexibility and if I'm going to take a job, I want a job that's going to give me that flexibility. That hey, listen from 925 to 940,.

Speaker 2 11:56

I got to go to my son's school and volunteer because he's going to be looking crazy in these pictures if I don't, because he's going to be looking crazy in these pictures, if I don't, you know, what do you think about folks who like women, who like, for example, like when you are in like a practice, right, okay, where you're in a practice and because there's pressure, right, let's say, you're in a practice with other men, whatever specialty it may be, you know, and you're just getting out of residency or you're just getting out of training, or maybe you're practicing for a while and then all of a sudden you get pregnant and then you have to deliver and during those you know that time, the maternity leave, usually what?

Speaker 2 12:35

12 weeks, you know, like everybody's changing their schedule and all these different things. Everybody says, yeah, we got you and so forth, and it's the law, right, like they got to give you that time and so forth. Did you talk about that pressure to come back? Come back early sometimes to make sure that you feel like, hey, you don't want to lose your skills, or maybe you don't want people talking behind your back, or is that a real thing still? What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1 13:04

I cannot speak on that because that was not my experience. I really can't. What was your experience? I quit right before I found out I was pregnant, yeah, and I never went back, right, I never went back to being employed. I can't really speak to that, but you know I'm going to say that, yes, there are a lot of women who feel that pressure right to perform because they have a goal in mind. Right, they also have the pressure of feeling like they want to be collegial, they want to be professional, and so work doesn't always give you that grace of being a mother while you're also trying to reach that professional goal. And so I would imagine that, yeah, there's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 1 13:53

Where you take time off, people are taking on your patients, because when you leave, you leave behind patients, and those patients don't just disappear. Those patients continue to have problems that need to be seen. They might need to be operated on, their treatments might need to be, you know, advanced. So you know there's a lot of pressure, I think, on those women in particular when they get pregnant, to be like, oh, maybe I should go back to work because everybody else is filling in for me and I'm not holding my weight. So I can't really speak to that because I didn't have that experience. So I can't just be like, oh, just forget everybody, just focus on yourself and whatever. It would be really, yeah, it would be irresponsible of me to say that you work in an ecosystem, so to speak.

Speaker 2 14:45

Yeah, that ecosystem has ebbs and flows, so that's a tough one.

Speaker 1 14:49

Yeah, it's tough. And then you have the pressure of speaking of 12 weeks. 12 weeks is three months. Think about it, it's not long like a three-month-old.

Speaker 2 14:59

It didn't click to me until we had a 12-month-old or a 12-week-old?

Speaker 1 15:04

Yeah, 12-week-old, and I remember.

Speaker 2 15:05

I asked you I was like wait, so we supposed to just hand this baby over to somebody.

Career vs. Family: The Impossible Balance

Speaker 1 15:08

Yes, I remember you and I was like, yep, go take him to the daycare and see what happened. 12 weeks, exactly 12 weeks A 12-week-old baby, that's a three-month-old baby. I'm supposed to go back to work. So now you feel like your life, that you want, that you're building at home, this family that you're building at home is literally in direct competition with your, you know, with your professional aspirations, and that should never be Right. That should never be. They should be working in tandem. You know that should never be. That's a perfect world. That's a perfect world. Right, that's a perfect world, or that's never be.

Speaker 2 15:50

That's a perfect world, that's a perfect world Right, that's a perfect world, or that's locums, and I think, well, no, to some extent.

Speaker 2 15:54

But I mean, I think the thing that we have to realize and let people know that this sacrifice At least for me, it is this sacrifice to everything Of course, right, I'm speaking from the male perspective, but also, at the same time, I watch and I think just a true, unbiased view is there are sacrifices, right Like things that you have to just say you can't have everything right, you can't have the perfect practice, you can't make all the amount of money, and then you can't also expect to be there for your kids. Right Like, this stuff is work right, like if you want to be there for your kids, then there's going to have to be times when you have to say no to your job. If there are things that you want to do career-wise, then there's times when you have to say no to your family.

Speaker 2 16:29

Like there's just times where you just have to make it work in some form or fashion, realize that you don't have to be perfect, but I definitely sometimes look and I'm like man, like if you were working, you know, full-time, like we're leaving a lot of money on the table. But that's not where we value. We don't value that right now.

Speaker 1 16:46

That's not where we yeah, exactly when right now we value one, our relationship.

Speaker 2 16:51

two, making sure that the kids grow up in a very healthy relationship. And three, that they have the opportunities to do things that we never had. But you know, the bill's going to come when we get into our 60s and 70s because they're going to be taking care of us. Remember all that. Remember that 529s I've been you know right, those 529s that we were funding Anywho Preschool, and all that, like yo, you're going to have to pay us back for that.

Speaker 1 17:16

For real. Okay, neat, be quiet. That's how I look at it. It's the truth. Whatever Neat, now you potting, I'm not potting. I'm just saying, yes, you are Now, you're potting the bill's coming.

Speaker 2 17:31

Yeah, you're going to bill our children. My dad's going to pay for college and they may pay for even grad school. It's like, okay, 70 comes, 75 comes. Dad can't change his underwear anymore. You coming, come help me out. You remember that? Remember those Jordans we got to.

Speaker 1 17:53

Anyway me out. You remember that. Remember those jordans we got to. Anyway me, I'm through with you, I am through with you, I'm done with you right now.

Speaker 2 18:00

I'm so done anywho. No, but seriously, to the listener, to the writer who wrote this question, this is a really good question and, um, thank you, renee, for um answering that in that, you with your candor, because I think you know, one thing that I want folks to really understand is that it's going to look different to everybody. Mom guilt, dad guilt. Dad guilt is a thing. Guys, yeah, ladies, dad guilt is a thing. It's not as prominent, we don't talk about it as much, there's not as much space to talk about that. But there are times when I'm gone and I'm thinking about it like man, like I'm missing out, taking them to. At least. I want to be able to put them to bed every day, or at least be able to take them to school. Right, there's got to be one thing. But when I'm gone, I'm gone for like a week, so I can't do any of those things. Right, I want to be able to help them with their homework and so forth, and there's times where I'm like man.

Necessary Sacrifices and Family Values

Speaker 2 18:47

All of this stuff accumulates, and is it accumulating into a bad thing or is it, you know, going to end up being really for the cause, so to speak, like the sacrifices that I'm making and stuff. But you know it's, you don't have all the answers. You do the best that you can and I think we kind of just go from there, but we do appreciate your answer. Or excuse me your question on this, renee. I appreciate your answer. Excuse me your question on this, renee. I appreciate your answer. This is a really good one. Um, I think we should actually leave it here.

Speaker 1 19:13

There's something that I wanted to speak about?

Speaker 2 19:15

yeah, there's a. There was things I wanted to talk about with doctors and the whole notion that we've seen on social media about doctors wanting to keep people sick, which makes no sense. Let's answer on another podcast. Yeah, another podcast. But anybody who wants to know where I think about it very quickly. It's just like you guys really think doctors have way more power than we really do, right? It's like that scene from malcolm x where you know the police officer is like no man should have all that.

Speaker 2 19:49

That's too much power for one man to have. You really think doctors have that much power power to keep people sick? You know like we don't do that, but anyway, we'll talk about that on another episode. But we do appreciate you guys listening. We do appreciate you guys writing in. We got a lot of questions, um, that people have written in that we got to answer, and I also appreciate everybody for being patient with us like for real, like we talked in. We got a lot of questions that people have written in that we got to answer and I also appreciate everybody for being patient with us like for real, like we talked about in the beginning. You know we've been once we get to next year, 2026, it'll be close to 10 years that we've been consistently doing this show.

Speaker 2 20:22

This show is for you guys. This show is about two doctors who are kind of figuring, or who have figured out how to take care of their debt, who figured out how to handle relationships, kids, as well as business and entrepreneurship. Right, like you've seen us if you've been listening from 2016, you've seen us grow into so many different directions and stuff. So just needed a break, you know, and there are times when we just needed to rest and I just didn't feel like talking, and this is what happened this past month. So I appreciate y'all for listening again to this show. We really appreciate all of you all. I appreciate the whole team, from Alfred all the way to the rest of the team, audrey, as well as Kiara, and then the help, renee. You know the help, the help, dr Renee.

Speaker 1 21:07

They wrote a movie about it.

Speaker 2 21:09

You know. Anyway, all right, guys, we're going to catch you guys on the next episode of Docs Outside the Box. Talk to you guys later.

Speaker 1 21:16

Deuces.