Just another example of authoritarians who hold rules as fixed in time instead of considering the possibility that they – and their rules – are out of touch with reality.
She already has a doctorate from Harvard. Now, after five years of medical training, all that stands between Sophie Currier of Brookline and an elite, double-barreled MD-Ph D is a daylong exam and her commitment to breast – feeding her infant daughter.
For Currier to begin her medical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital this fall as scheduled, she must pass the clinical knowledge exam run by the National Board of Medical Examiners by August. The exam is nine hours long and allows a total of only 45 minutes in breaks.
But Currier is still nursing her 7 -week-old daughter, Léa, and if she does not pump milk from her breasts every two or three hours, she could suffer blocked ducts, the discomfort of hard breasts, or an infection called mastitis.
When she called the board last week to ask for extra break time, she said she was told that the test provides special accommodations only for disabilities covered by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, and breast-feeding was not one of them.
This is dumber than the flight attendant expelling a nursing mother from a plane, last year. That was personal ignorance. This is official arrogance.
All of them have been through medical school, just pump while you write. Standardized tests are taken very seriously. I find it hard to believe that similar situations hasn’t occurred and have been resolved before. Sounds like a social statement is being made out of this.
i don’t know, she’s not too bad looking and I wouldn’t mind seeing her whip them out during the exam. its would definately liven up the exam for all those that taking it.
Heck, I’d probably ask for a drink too.
#2. ……which is why she wants a break.
Cripes.
I guess she is not going to do any 9 hr surgeries?
These exams are very competitive. I wonder what other Doctors think?
I have to side with the ‘feds’ on this one. Motherhood should rank right up there with the phd or MD (or both) in terms of importance, and this is simply a case of bad timing. Take care of the kid and take the exams a little later, like once the kid is off the teat?
And for a strange reason I blame less the farmaceutical companies for the rising cost of medical health care in the US but instead I blame the Holier than thou “doctors” with enough degrees to wallpaper a single room.
Fun,
As I am handicapped sence birth.
and to get my disability after working some years. Social security DIDNT have my handicap listed, and didnt even know what it was.
This is just such liberal, feminazi crap.
Women say they want choices. Well, here is a choice: go to college for 4 years, then medical school for 4 years, and residency for 3 to 5 years, and then at age 30 have a baby or babies. If not that, then have babies first and then go to school. Better yet, if breast feeding is so important to you, take a year off and then start your training.
Did you catch this, “Currier, 33, said she is receiving some test accommodation. She has serious dyslexia and attention problems — she was featured in a Globe column last year about adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — and is thus given twice the usual time to complete the test: two nine-hour days instead of one.” Right, so she already has extra time and wants more. Puhlease.
And she is 33. That means she started medical school when she was 28 or 29. Guess she was “finding herself” in her 20s.
Medical training is not for the faint of heart. If she cannot handle a nine hour test, then how is she going to handle it when someone is sick for 9 hours or has a 9 hour procedure?
There are a lot of women who decide the perfect time to get pregnant is during residency and internship. If they waited until they finished training, having a baby would seriously cut into their income. These women get maternity leave because of federal rules and leave men or considerate women who don’t get pregnant at this time to pick up their slack.
As far as health goes, medical training isn’t concerned with one’s own health but the health of others. Staying up 36 hours straight, being exposed to multiple diseases, and being stressed in a life and death moment are not exactly good for one’s health. I wouldn’t want to be raised by a mother who was in a rigorous medical training program. There is more to raising a child than just breast feeding.
Kicking a woman off a plane for breast feeding was insane. That mother was doing what was best for her child… but not this one. She is doing what is best for her.
I am tired of women using their kids, being pregnant, or breast feeding as an excuse to get special treatment at the work place. The last I checked, getting pregnant and working were choices. Women need to be held responsible for their choices. I am tired of being asked to pick up the slack for their choices.
If you can’t handle taking the test, then don’t start your medical training. It’s as simple as that.
Lotta anger out there on this issue. I do not have a problem with the breast feeding. I have more issues with the extended time frame for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. How does this woman plan on being a medical doctor if she can not concentrate?
Aww jeez, a lotta anger is right! Just let the lady take an extra 5 minutes every couple of hours to breast feed, or at least duck into the broom closet to pump.
As to the ADD, given the quality of many doctors I’ve run into over the past decade or two, I’d say an inability to concentrate for extended periods is the LEAST of the trouble.
I feel for the woman trying to make her life better. It seems she’s trying for the double of a PhD and a Medical doctor’s degree. Probably because of her concentration problem. She will perfectly suited to teach medicine. But I have a problem with her doing a residency with her ADD. She could put a patient in danger. She should simply finish the PhD and let it go at that.
I understand somewhat what she is fighting. My chosen profession is now looking like a dream because of my concentration problems since my surgury and chemo. While I have my law degree and will be able to obtain my MA (my BCL in the UK) this year, courtroom lawyering is looking like something I won’t be able to do. I am facing having to choose between being a so so lawyer(and not being able to provide the best my clients deserve) or teaching, which would be better suited(but the idea of it I hate). This lady needs to make the same choice.
Life sucks.
#9, you don’t really get the whole feminism thing, do you?
#9, jz
The last I checked, getting pregnant and working were choices. Women need to be held responsible for their choices.
So are breathing, eating, farting, and nose picking choices. So do the world a favor and quit breathing the same air as the rest of civilization. Our choice is not to share with you.
BTW, you might “guess” what she did with her life, but if you bothered to read the article you would understand she was working towards her PhD.
The great thing about breast milk is the nice containers!
No #14, the article states, For Currier to begin her medical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital “. This has nothing to do with her PhD.
This is a quote from femimist Sally Gearhart, “The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race” So your comment about not sharing air and killing me and other men is not far off. Ms.Gearhart is calling for male genocide. So keep it up, #14 AKA Mr. mangina, and maybe you will be one of those lucky 10%.
#13, When you write you don’t get the whole femimism thing, I think I get it and you don’t. Feminism is female advocacy not female equality. The whole point of this article is this woman wants special treatment because of a choice she made. Disabled people do not choose to be disabled. Women choose to breast feed.
Yes, we all know that breast feeding is better than bottle feeding, but tons of women bottle feed their kids. If a man tells a woman to breast feed and the woman refuses, the man is an asshole for imposing his wishes on her body. In this case, if a man tells a woman to bottle feed because this woman is imposing on others, the man is an asshole because he doesn’t want what is best for the child.
A woman does what is best for her and everybody else, including her own children, can go screw themselves. Narcissm is at the core of modern feminism.
9—If she has dyslexia and cannot perform to measure, she should be disqualified to practice medicine. Societies interest in educating fewer people than apply for medical school is to produce qualified physicians–not to fulfill the career goals of these Type A personalities.
I liked this near the end of the article: “It strikes her as ridiculous, Currier said, when someone like former Harvard president Lawrence Summers spins out hypotheses about why many women may not be making it to the top tiers of science and medicine.
“It’s so clearly obvious why women are dropping out in their 30s ,” she said. “It’s plain as day.”===yeah, because every woman who drops out of science and medicine does so because they are dyslexic and denied breast feeding exemptions?
The revolution will not be televised.
“But I have a problem with her doing a residency with her ADD. She could put a patient in danger. ”
Yes, ADD can cause a person to lose focus and kill someone. However, the upside to losing focus is seeing other possibllities that may save someone’s life. And it’s well known people with ADD have better physical endurance than people who don’t.
#18..jz…..Tell you what…..you take the Doctor with ADD and I’ll take the one who dosen’t have it…deal?
I do understand that people with ADD have strength’s as well as weaknesses. Endurance in a Doctor isn’t exactly something I would have way up on my list of things to look for, but if I want one to run in a marathon with me maybe then.
If I was a criminal facing a possible death sentence for the crime I’m accused of, I don’t think I want a lawyer that may or may not be able to bring his/her powers of concentration to bear on my behalf.
Self esteem and common sense don’t always match. This woman(as I said above) needs to be realistic and maybe think about something other than her self.
#16,
For Currier to begin her medical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital “. This has nothing to do with her PhD.
You asswipe. You stated in #9,
And she is 33. That means she started medical school when she was 28 or 29. Guess she was “finding herself” in her 20s.
That indicates with reasonable probability that she has been studying medicine for the past few years. AND before that studying for her PhD.
You are a woman hater. Period. Nothing intelligent to offer, only that it is her fault she is having a family in the years where it is medically safest to do so. To bear children is her right, not a choice. It isn’t one of these things where you get to decide for her. What? You don’t want to support her while she is having children? Then don’t. She isn’t asking you to. She is asking for the recognition that breast feeding requires frequent releasing or there may be complications. Anything else is just none of your business.
Sally Gearhart, yup, good quote. Here’s one from your spectrum. Phuk ewe, – Dick Cheney.
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#19, If I was a criminal facing a possible death sentence for the crime I’m accused of, I don’t think I want a lawyer that may or may not be able to bring his/her powers of concentration to bear on my behalf.
Then why would you become a lawyer? Are there not other areas of law other then criminal trial lawyer? Maybe, Ms Currier is in the same situation and has no intention of practicing hands on medicine. Maybe she wants to do research or medical oversight for the FDA. Maybe her PhD is in designing orthopedics or implants. Areas where a medical degree is needed but not to practice medicine.
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Given my choice between a physician with ADD and a physician without ADD? I would choose the best physician. That may or may not be the one with ADD. It would be the one that KNOWS what complications might have arisen, or what drug will work better, or even when to refer the case to someone more knowledgeable. Prejudging how a particular person will or will not act based upon a disability is discriminatory and usually ends up wrong.
#20….I think I did mention that she would make a fine Medical teacher, and that using her PhD would be a good idea. But why let facts sway you, you never have in the past.
As to my becoming a lawyer…..possibly I may have finished my law degree before I became ill and developed the problems I have, instead of entering the profession KNOWING that I had problems that could interfere with my performing the duties of the profession I chose.
It’s nothing to do with the lady’s ability to breast feed. The problem is her ADD, and they have already gone beyond what they ever would do for a male , by allowing her 2 days to take her tests. It takes 10 minutes to use a breast pump, if she does one breast each small break, she will have done what is needed to keep from having blocked ducts. But then, she wouldn’t be able to make a statement and get her 15 minutes of fame.