RS30 - A Nationwide Review of Parental Leave and Lactation Policies for Vascular Surgery Training Programs

Objectives: Family planning is an integral component in the support of gender equity in surgical training. However, there are variations in policies surrounding parenthood within surgical residencies. Our objectives were to (1) assess the transparency around parental leave and lactation policies among vascular surgery programs, (2) evaluate program level variations in these policies, and (3) evaluate association between parental leave and lactation policies with institutional unionization status.

Methods: Data was collected as part of a confidential survey administered after the 2024 Vascular Surgery In-Service Training Examination. Publicly available, program-specific graduated medical education handbooks and house staff websites for vascular surgery training programs were evaluated. The primary outcome of interest is the presence of online parental leave and lactation policies.

Results: Overall, there were 531 trainees from 130 vascular surgery training programs surveyed. 91 (70.0%) programs had parental leave policies and 40 (30.8%) programs had lactation policies publicly available on the program’s website. University-affiliated programs had a higher prevalence of parental leave policies (69 [75.8], p=0.01), and lactation policies (37 [92.5%], p=0.001). Compared to larger training programs with 4 or more trainees, smaller training programs were associated with lower presence of parental policy (47 [83.9%] vs. 44 [59.5%], p=0.003, respectively). There was no statistically significant geographic variation in the presence of parental leave policy, however northeast programs (33.3%) had the highest rate of publicly available policies and southwest programs (10.0%) had the lowest rate of policies. The presence of unionization did not have an association with presence of these policies. Based on the publicly available policies, the majority of programs offered 6 weeks of paid leave, while some programs offered up to 12 weeks.

Conclusions: There is more consistency for parental leave policy to be publicly available while lactation policy is more variable for vascular surgery training programs in the United States. As the field works to support gender equity, it is critical that these policies are standardized. Parental leave policy may be more readily available given the new guideline from American Board of Surgery. More effort should be made by training programs to be well-versed with other crucial components surrounding parenthood (i.e. lactation, accommodation, adjustment of schedule) to support their trainees.