If you have ever wondered how you would manage pregnancy, birth, parental leave, childcare, parenting logistics, call, or clinic coverage while practicing rural medicine, you are not alone. These questions are deeply personal, but they are also structural, and many rural physicians carry them quietly while continuing to show up for their communities.

When I was first pregnant, I was the only family physician on Galiano Island. I quickly found myself advocating, emailing, and pushing for a plan so that my patients and community would still have care while I was away. There was no clear pathway and no real roadmap for taking parental leave. For the birth itself, we had to leave our island and move into an Airbnb in a nearby town to wait for our baby to arrive safely in hospital when he came on New Year’s Day.

By the time my second child came, some changes had been made, but mostly the same challenges continued. She arrived early, in the first month of the COVID pandemic. She decided to make her entrance before we could get off the island, after the last ferry had already sailed. Too much gardening, perhaps? She was born at home where we were so grateful to have the help of paramedics, the Infant Transport Team, my nurse practitioner colleague, and a retired midwife from the island.

The challenges of rural parenting did not end with parental leave and birth. Like many rural physicians, I found that each stage brought new logistical, emotional, and professional hurdles, often without a clear roadmap or meaningful support. But alongside those hurdles came the joys and gifts of starting a family in a beautiful rural community: being surrounded by people who knew us; giving our children an early childhood full of natural playgrounds; and living in a space with a little more room to breathe, away from the consumerism and busyness of many other places.

I know my story is only one of many. That is why Parenting in Practice matters. If any part of this feels familiar to you, I hope you will fill out the survey below and consider joining our small working group or email list. The more we hear from one another, the better we can build supports that make it easier to care for both our communities and our families.

Author

Dr. Erin Carlson is a family physician. She leads the Parenting in Practice initiative with RCCbc and is also Co-Chair of the Rural and Remote Division of Family Practice.

Parenting in Practice is an RCCbc initiative helping to embed and normalize parenting in medical practice. The group is dedicated to increasing awareness and support for parents in practice, as well as advocating for and improving the futures of rural physicians, their families and their communities.

Drawing on the experience of parents who practice medicine, Parenting in Practice is relaunching its work with a new survey to better understand the realities of parenting in rural medical practice. This survey will help identify current needs, gaps, and supports, and will inform the next phase of this work.

If you are a rural BC physician who is a parent or planning to start a family, we invite you to take part.