Pregnant Doctors: Sent Home – Discrimination?

Or the abundance of colleagues who don’t even say that they are pregnant – even though it becomes quite obvious at a certain point. Because they know that if they announce their pregnancy, they will have massive professional disadvantages. Often forced to sit around, take blood pressure measurements, and do auxiliary tasks. That’s what the law wants. So many colleagues don’t say anything for as long as possible.

Not that it isn’t often obvious. The stomach bulges. But that is then simply ignored. “I’ve even heard the boss say: Congratulations, let me know when I can officially find out,” says Anna-Christina Bernd.

General practitioner Bernd had her child when she had already finished her training at the hospital. “Perhaps I would have become pregnant earlier, but on the one hand I didn’t want to tell my colleagues about it, and on the other hand I wasn’t sure whether I would even be able to find a training position afterwards because of my fixed-term contract,” she says. She also had colleagues “who announced the pregnancy and in response everyone was worried about how they were going to fill the roster. So it’s basically your fault that the others are suffering now.”

Conversely, the two doctors also know of a young doctor who operated until shortly before she went on maternity leave. “But she was simply the wife of the senior physician and they always operated in pairs. Nobody dared to say anything,” says Greb.

Greb and Bernd – one an internist specializing in rheumatology, the other a general practitioner – have been involved in the Vienna Medical Association for years. Greb co-founded the women’s department there and is now the first deputy there, Anna-Christina Bernd is deputy chairwoman of the rotational doctors section (both from the “Initiative Neue Kammer”). The discrimination against pregnant doctors is a particular concern of the women’s department (across all parliamentary groups) in this legislative period. Compared to other countries such as Germany, Austria “has one of the strictest maternity protection laws ever,” says Greb.

This is due to the fact that the situation for female doctors is not clearly defined legally. Unlike in Germany (or Switzerland), where it is assumed that work is generally safe for pregnant doctors (in Germany, for example, night shifts are completely prohibited, but risk-adapted surgery is possible), In Austria you have to go the opposite way.

“In Austria, everything is forbidden unless it is proven that there is no danger,” says Greb. So the employer would first have to prove that the work is safe for the pregnant doctor. “But such studies and evidence are not available for all activities.” Who can guarantee that something won’t happen during an ultrasound, for example? What remains is a total patchwork of what pregnant doctors are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do – a lot depends on the goodwill of the department board, i.e. the primary or primary school. “In one department you can do an ultrasound, in the other you can’t,” says Greb.

However, this legal regulation often has fatal consequences for female doctors in training. Even if they are not sent on early maternity leave (which is not the case under the law), they are rarely able to complete all of their training tasks. So they spend a lot of time in the doctor’s office. They are only partially allowed into the outpatient clinics, and for many patients they are no longer allowed. They don’t have this time for training.

A situation that doesn’t get better after the birth of the child. Because if they only return part-time after the pregnancy (like so many women), “the training period is extended proportionally,” explains Greb. A prospective medical specialist who still has three years of training left must complete her training in six years if she works half-time on parental leave. If she even gets this half job. “Most department heads don’t want part-time positions,” says Greb. They want 100 percent.

In practice, this means that many female doctors in training find it difficult to find something to do with children, and some even feel forced to change their specialty, especially in highly competitive subjects such as trauma surgery or orthopedics. Although there is a guarantee of parental leave, the training contracts for female doctors in training are usually limited in time: they simply do not have to be extended.

However, the group of female doctors that is most needed is particularly disadvantaged: general practitioners. They have to rotate quite a bit during their training. This means that part of their training is to go through different departments. This is not always possible at a (single) hospital. This means that these doctors do not have long-term contracts, but have to work through chain contracts from training place to training place. If a doctor becomes pregnant during this time, she has to worry about even getting a new training position (who takes a pregnant woman on voluntarily?). “I know a lot of people who say I’ll wait to get pregnant until I’ve finished my training because they’re simply too afraid of no longer being able to find a place to train,” says Greb. The only difference is that many of them are already over 35 years old and it no longer “just works”.

Added to this is the financial disadvantage. If the chain contracts create longer gaps (anything over 14 days) between jobs, you are not entitled to income-related childcare allowance. However, this is almost always the better option for women who earn well and work full-time.

The professional representatives also know that the topic is a sensitive one. The head of the women’s department, Nina Böck (Team Szekeres), is herself a gynecologist. She emphasizes, for example, that under no circumstances do we want to completely abolish maternity leave, which women have fought hard for. A fear that she hears again and again in conversations with senior doctors.

She became a mother herself around two years ago and also knows that there are limits. “Doing 25 hours of night shifts and then being woken up at three in the morning for an emergency caesarean section is something you shouldn’t have to do during pregnancy,” she says. Long night shifts or any kind of emergencies where you have to treat patients who are bleeding heavily under pressure are not exactly what the professional representatives are demanding. Nor that pregnant doctors have to go into the Covid or tuberculosis room to treat patients.

“You can do an ultrasound in one department, but not in the other.”

Antonia Greb

doctor

What they would really like is for pregnant doctors to be allowed to carry out more work where it is safe to do so. For example, laparoscopic procedures, when the infection status of the patient is known and the skin incision is performed by another person. Or operations with the da Vinci robot, where you don’t come into contact with the patient at all.

In a survey carried out among surgical doctors on behalf of the Austrian Society for Gynecology and Obstetrics in 2023, it was found that 93 percent of those surveyed support operating on pregnant doctors if it is their express wish. According to the survey results, this would ensure faster progress in training, but also counteract the pressure on female doctors who have to choose between children and a career.

In general, Böck would like pregnant doctors to have more say in what they want to do and what not. “To a certain extent, you should give a pregnant woman freedom to do what she still dares to do,” says the representative.

In any case, the way things are going now is not ideal. After all, the pregnant doctors (even though they are actually obliged to announce the pregnancy) are virtually pressured into keeping quiet so as not to experience massive professional disadvantages. However, this completely undermines maternity protection – and exactly the situations that shouldn’t happen happen: pregnant doctors work night shifts, treat infectious patients and operate on emergencies in which a lot of blood flows. In any case, “the maternity protection law only applies to employees,” notes Greb. Because as soon as a doctor is self-employed, no one asks what she can do. “It’s actually an employee protection law,” says Greb, “and not really a maternity protection law.”

Another important tool, says Greb, are positive lists. Lists that clearly state what pregnant doctors are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. The gynecology, anesthesia and ophthalmology sectors have already become active and have implemented such lists. This means that departments can let their pregnant colleagues work with greater peace of mind. Although a lot still depends on the goodwill or will of superiors. However, in many subjects these lists are completely missing. The women’s department would like to initiate this now.

But the creation of the positive lists does not run smoothly either. The Ministry of Labor does not want each specialist company to take care of such lists independently, but rather to bundle them together. “For this to happen, different surgical or internal medicine disciplines would have to be made up,” says Greb. This implementation should actually be initiated by the Austrian Medical Association. However, the Federal Courier of the Austrian Medical Association reacted negatively to an application from the curia of employed doctors of the Vienna Medical Association. One sees no need, it says in an answer from July 2025.

“Maybe I would have gotten pregnant sooner, but I didn’t want to do that to my colleagues.”

Anna-Christina Bernd

General practitioner

When asked by “Presse am Sonntag” they also waved it away. The Maternity Protection Act serves “to protect the health and safety of the expectant mother” and already regulates protection comprehensively. “We therefore do not see a need for so-called positive lists,” it said in a written response.

Waiting until the training is finished is definitely the least favorable option for young female doctors. In Germany, a study from 2021 showed that female doctors have children five years later than women in other professional groups. Specialists later. In Austria, Greb and Bernd are certain from their own observation that this is the same. Fertility problems and unfulfilled desire to have children included.