Mothers In Medicine Podcast · Mothers In Medicine

When is the right time to have children in training? Dr Katerina Bambang

·26 min·1 clip

Katerina says being 45 and realising you wanted a family is a painful point of no return.

Dr Shola welcomes listeners into the Mothers in Medicine podcast with the promise of honest and open conversations between leaders in the medical field who are also mothers. She introduces Dr Katerina Bambang as a consultant in gynecology and a subspecialist in gynecology. The central question is direct. The answer is not simple. The conversation begins with the pressure points that define medical training: exams, research, perilous rotas, and night shifts. Dr Shola also places the question in a wider context, noting the number of women in UK medicine while keeping the focus on the lived reality of balancing care and career. The discussion stays close to the day-to-day strain. Dr Katerina is asked to consider what really matters when life is crowded and there is no clean pause button. Her answer pushes back on the idea that every mother has to do everything perfectly. She argues that career can remain deeply important. She also says family can be equally significant. The point is not to choose one identity and erase the other. It is to be honest about both. The conversation makes room for uncertainty without turning it into a crisis. It also warns against analysis paralysis. Thinking about the decision forever can leave a person unable to decide at all. From there, the episode turns toward the way parenting changes over time. Very young children can be physically exhausting. They need carrying, chasing, and constant hands-on effort. Later, the load changes. Teenagers may be less physically demanding but more mentally absorbing. That shift matters because work changes too. The episode keeps returning to flexibility, both in life and in medicine. Dr Katerina suggests that what you can give to work will change as children move through different stages. The conversation ends on a note that is practical rather than dramatic. Go for it. Put both parts of life into play. Do not wait for a perfect answer that never comes. The result is a conversation that feels familiar, candid, and useful to anyone trying to find a steady path through the juggle.

As heard by us

A steady, practical discussion of timing children around medical training.

Mothers in Medicine Podcast takes a practical look at a question that rarely has a tidy answer: when, if ever, is the right time to have children during training. Dr. Shola and Dr.

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Why you'd press play

If you are weighing family plans against exams, rotas, and a career that will not pause.

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