Being a physician is an amazing privilege, and it can be a deeply rewarding career...but first you have to get through medical school. Students, who were often at the top of their class prior to medical school, now find themselves surrounded by equally bright, hardworking, overachieving classmates and facing new challenges from rigorous curricula to specialty selection to navigation of unchartered territories of mentorship, clinical rotations, and research. Thriving in medical school requires more than smarts—it requires new learning strategies, organization, time management, teamwork skills, mentorship, adaptability, resilience, and more. This book brings together advice from medical educators, practicing physicians, and current medical students to help new medical students not just survive medical school but handle the transition with grace and position them to succeed and thrive.

Women are entering medical school in equal numbers as men, yet still face unique challenges in a profession where, overall, male physicians outnumber female physicians 3 to 1. Women in medicine also face decisions such as when to have a child during training and often struggle with work-life balance. This book features real stories and advice from mothers in medicine at all stages of training from medical student to practicing physician and addresses the topics that shape the lives, joys, and challenges of women in medicine today. The book is based on the best posts and wisdom shared on the Mothers in Medicine blog, which was established in 2008 by the editor and has published over 1500 posts and has over 4.8 million page views to date. The book is organized by themes that are unique to the physician-mother: career decisions, having children during training, navigating life challenges, practice issues, and work-life balance. Each chapter features an excerpt from the blog followed by an honest discussion of the key considerations, guidelines, and tips as related to each topic in the conversational, personal tone of the blog. The book concludes with a chapter that features the most popular questions posted on the Mothers in Medicine blog and a summary of the responses received from the community of readers. Mothers in Medicine: Career, Practice, and Life Lessons Learned is a valuable and contemporary resource for pre-medical students, medical students, residents, and physicians.