As Mother’s Day approaches, amid the predictable rush of brunch bookings and florists doing their best work, my thoughts have drifted towards the women I trained alongside.

Medicine has always demanded endurance. The hours are long, the examinations exacting, and the service obligations rarely confined to what is formally rostered. We accept this as the price of admission.

What receives far less candid attention is how unevenly that burden is distributed.

For women in training, particularly those who choose to have children, the equation becomes far more complex. Maternity leave exists in policy, but the lived experience is often something quite different.

Stepping away is rarely a clean break. Training pathways are rigid, progression can stall, and there remains a persistent sense that time away demands some special justification because ordinary life, ordinary family life is not a sufficient reason.

Many doctors return earlier than they would otherwise wish, not because they are ready, but because the system does not easily accommodate absence.

That tension is amplified by a shift we have not adequately confronted.