The Incredible‘s Elastigirl was flexible. She knew how to balance motherhood, marriage, and work. Or did she? She may have defeated the villain at the end of the day, but it came at a cost.

Being a Woman Doctor (or a Woman Anything)

It begs the question: Is it really possible to have it all?

As a second-year family medicine resident, I sat down to a dinner with one of my attendings and several of my fellow second- and third-year residents. To be honest, it was rare to have a nice dinner out and I looked forward to eating real food, i.e., not something from the hospital cafeteria, as much as spending time with friends.

The physician who brought us together had done so with purpose. She wanted to talk with the female trainees about a woman’s life in medicine. I did not expect her to say what she did.

Work-Life Balance

We talked about life after residency and what to expect. I was ready to feel empowered and jumpstart my future. Instead, she said something I would never forget, “You can’t have it all.”

In that moment, I felt as if she had dumped a glass of cold water, maybe even a whole pitcher, over my head. In reality, all the glasses were full and my colleagues sipped away at them, nodding their heads in agreement. I simply looked on dumbfounded.

Why would a female physician offer us such a bleak outlook? Was she burned out? Did she not like her job? Surely, if she did want it all, couldn’t she go out and get it? Worse yet, why was everyone agreeing with her?

Apparently, I was the only one naive enough to hope.

“It’s not possible to have it all,” she said. “You have to decide what it is you want. You have to make a choice about what is most important to you because people will always push you to do more. If you try to do it all, if you try to please everyone, you will lose yourself and I would not wish that kind of unhappiness on anyone.”

As much as I wanted her to be wrong, she was right.

Work-Life Balance

What does it mean to have it all? For many people, it means having a balance between work and home life. Society can and does view that differently depending on whether you are a man or a woman.

• A single woman is undesirable, a (soon-to-be) old maid.
• If she doesn’t have kids, she is somehow incomplete.
• A stay-at-home mom should be “super mom”.
• A working mom is selfish to put her ambitions ahead of her children.

If a woman is a doctor, whether or not she is single or married, whether or not she has kids, she should be at the beck and call of her patients every minute of the day. She should spend as long as possible with each patient but be on time for every visit. She also needs to have all the answers, provide top of the line care, and somehow still do whatever the patient needs, even when it is only what the patient thinks he needs, i.e., antibiotics for a cold.

In the real world, there is a time crunch. There is simply not enough time to see all the patients who need to be seen, all the people who need help. A doctor does her best with the time given but she is only human. She will not always have the answers because in medicine we do not always have them. When a doctor, man or woman, disagrees with a patient about a diagnosis or treatment, they are often vilified. It does not matter that the doctor has clinical experience or years of training to back up their recommendations. Society demands perfection, but in a “me, me, me” world, where people get upset when they hear what they don’t want to hear, perfection will always be unattainable.

Trying to balance all the contradictions is impossible.

Set Your Own Terms

I may not have liked what my attending told me back in the second year of residency training but I understand it now. She was not telling us that we shouldn’t aim high and go after what we want. She was telling us to set our own terms. Falling prey to society’s definition of “having it all” will only set you up for disappointment.

It’s no one’s business whether you are single or married. It’s a personal decision whether or not you have children, and when you do there is no escape from the stay-at-home/working mom divide. As for being a doctor, you will spend more than a decade of your life training to help others but it will never be enough. There will always be more to learn. As much as you try to make people healthy, treat disease, and promote wellness, there will always be people who will be unhappy with your work. That does not make it any less of a rewarding profession when things go right.

To be happy yourself, you need to decide what it is that you want. Prioritize the things that matter to you. At times, you may need to make compromises. You may even have to make outright sacrifices. If it ultimately gets you what you want, do not be afraid to go for it. Like Elastigirl, you have to be flexible. You don’t have to be a superhero to find work-life balance. You just have to be true to yourself and put society’s expectations aside.