Surgeons who marry other working physicians face more challenges balancing their personal and professional lives than surgeons partnered with non-physicians, according to a survey from the American College of Surgeons.

About 16% of the 7,120 surgeons who responded to the ACS survey in 2008 were married to or had a domestic partner who was also a working physician; nearly a third of those couples were surgeon-surgeon relationships. Survey results showed that surgeons in dual physician relationships were more likely to have experienced recent career and work-home conflicts than surgeons partnered with non-physicians, and that these challenges were even more acute among surgeon-surgeon couples.

Respondents whose partners were also physicians were more likely to report "depressive symptoms or low mental quality of life," wrote the researchers, led by Liselotte Dyrbye, MD, MHPE, FACP, of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minn. Meanwhile, surgeons whose partners did not work outside the home reported greater satisfaction with their careers than those partnered with working physicians.

The survey results were published in the November issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

The ACS notes that dual-physician relationships are on the rise as a growing number of women enter the field. "To help facilitate the lives of dual-career couples, healthcare organizations should consider coordinated schedules, daycare [provisions] in the workplace, adjusted timelines for promotion and tenure, and planning for spousal employement during recruitment," says Dr. Dyrbye,

Irene Tsikitas

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