Becoming Both

In this episode the host, Amanda Quijano, sits down with Margot - a family medicine physician and inpatient palliative care doctor who is expecting her third child. The two talk about Margot’s experience having children during medical training, focusing on her journey navigating breastfeeding in residency. Margot describes choosing residency programs based on their level of support of parenting re...

In this BONUS bonus episode, the host, Amanda Quijano, revisits an additional portion of last week’s conversation with Breanna, a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow, focusing on what it felt like to take a year off medical training to move with her husband, be pregnant, and spend nine months as a full-time mom. The two discuss the cultural pressure in medicine to justify time off for family, a...

In this episode, the Host, Amanda Quijano, chats with Breanna, a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow and author of the Academic Psychiatry article “ Fast Tracking Slowly. ” They discuss Breanna’s deciding to take a gap year between adult psychiatry residency and child fellowship to start a family amid the two-body problem with her MD-PhD husband who was also in the process of matching. She desc...

In this BONUS episode, the host, Amanda Quijano, and returning guest Kristen discuss her experience returning to emergency medicine after maternity leave. Kristen describes fears about returning after nearly four months off, including physical recovery, sleep deprivation, clinical rust, “mom brain,” pumping logistics, and the emotional difficulty of leaving her son. She explores how the transition...

In this episode, the host, Amanda Quijano, sits down with Kristin, a fourth-year emergency medicine resident and new mom. The two discuss Kristin’s experience having her first baby during residency and how the physical stress of pregnancy forced her to change her original plans for leave and graduating on time. They explore the inherent feelings of guilt associated with acknowledging the physical...

In this bonus episode, the host, Amanda Quijano, and Christine discussing her late miscarriage during her first pregnancy and the fear and guilt she felt about workplace exposures in the emergency department. The host frames Christine’s story with data showing that the rate of pregnancy loss in medical trainees may be as high as 2-4x the national average, alongside limited systemic protections fro...

Host Amanda Quijano interviews Christine, a third-year fellow and new mom. The conversation explores how she decided when to start a family during training and how her decision-making process was partially shaped by her experiences as a medical student, her identity as a Black woman physician and her awareness of higher maternal morbidity and mortality risks. She talks about her journey freezing e...

In this episode, the host, Amanda Quijano and guest Julie, a pediatric emergency medicine attending and first author on a recent Academic Emergency Medicine study, discuss a national survey of pediatric emergency medicine fellowship program directors on pregnancy accommodations and parental leave policies: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41948123/ Their discussion highlights major variability in t...

In this bonus episode, the host, Amanda Quijano and her guest Vicky discuss how difficult it is to build supportive systems within an existing system that was not designed to meet the needs of family planning, maternity leave, and pregnant trainees. They use their experiences as not just physician parents, but also chief residents, to highlight the lack of structural support and the absence of a u...

In this episode, the host, Amanda Quijano, interviews her friend Vicky, a pediatric emergency medicine fellow finishing training, mom of [almost] two on her experiences with becoming a mom during her residency and fellowship. The conversation focuses on Vicky’s journey building a family during medical training, the idea that maybe there really is no “right time”, and how surprising genetic testing...

In this episode, host Amanda Quijano interviews Erica, now a first-year outpatient general pediatrician and mom of two under two, about having her first child during pediatrics residency and the physical and emotional toll of the training environment. They talk about the lack of guidance around pregnancy accommodations, leave and scheduling, including working 24-hour shifts late in pregnancy. They...

In the kick-off episode of the podcast, the host, Amanda Quijano - a pediatric emergency medicine physician and mom of four - sits down with her partner - a former MD/PhD student who opted not to pursue clinical medicine - to share their own story of becoming both. They speak candidly about the current state of the system and culture of medical training that makes it almost impossible to become a...

Welcome to Becoming Both: During this first season, host Amanda Quijano - a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician and mother of four - features stories from medical trainees, practicing physicians, educators and researchers exploring the intersection of medical training, parenthood, and the system that makes doing both of these things almost impossible. This trailer offers an extended sneak peak...