In 2021, when Jamie Pfaff, MD, and Katie Sunthankar, MD, became pregnant with their first babies during their residencies at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, they were quickly faced with countless questions and challenges.
They struggled to balance a work schedule at a busy academic medical center, which was understandably inflexible, with events that followed no set schedule — navigating pregnancy and prenatal appointments, childbirth and caring for a newborn.
They were often overwhelmed. There might have been tears involved.
They didn’t want other house staff parents-to-be and young families to become stressed and frustrated while juggling their clinical duties with pregnancy, so they took advantage of their newborns’ naptimes and compiled a guidebook.
The PGY Parent Handbook is 23 pages and counting of up-to-date, invaluable information. It covers everything from finding obstetrical care and early planning for childcare to the locations of lactation rooms at VUMC and how to stay safe during pregnancy in medical spaces that include radiation, chemotherapy and infectious diseases.
Their efforts — now available to every VUMC resident and fellow — earned them a 2026 David C. Leach Award from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the national organization that accredits graduate medical training programs in the United States. This award recognizes residents and fellows who have fostered innovation and improvement in their programs, advanced humanism in medicine, and increased efficiency and emphasis on educational outcomes. They will receive their award at the ACGME Annual Educational Conference in February 2026.
“We are incredibly proud of Drs. Pfaff and Sunthankar for turning the demanding experience of completing residency during pregnancy and new parenthood into a meaningful initiative to support their peers,” said Donald Brady, MD, Executive Vice President for Educational and Medical Staff Affairs at VUMC and Executive Vice Dean for Academic Affairs at VUSM. “Their efforts have resulted in a vital resource that provides guidance for house staff navigating similar journeys. This ACGME award speaks to its significance not only for VUMC house staff, but also as it serves as an example for other programs.”
The two physicians were Medicine residents together at VUMC and both became pregnant at around the same time, for the first time.
“We were struggling to find resources and were trying to figure out how to stay safe, and so many of the other topics that we’ve included in the handbook,” said Pfaff, who is now a fellow in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. “We were sharing what we learned with other colleagues and friends who needed this information, too, and decided to consolidate everything into a handbook.”
Sunthankar, now an assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, said the pair had many late-night phone calls with the theme of “Why is this so hard?” and “Why can we not figure out what we’re supposed to be doing?”
They learned that, while other VUMC house staff had certainly navigated being a resident or fellow while pregnant, there hadn’t been a female resident in the Department of Medicine who had given birth during residency in several years.
“We had all of these questions: How do you stay safe when you’re around a CMV (cytomegalovirus) patient? How do you leave work to get to prenatal care?” Sunthankar said. “And I remember Jamie and I talking so many times about FMLA. We started gathering together everything we learned and have kept adding to it over the years.”
They were advised along the way by Kyla Terhune, MD, MBA, then associate dean for Graduate Medical Education for Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Senior Vice President for Educational Affairs for Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Terhune had navigated the challenges of pregnancy and parenthood during her own medical training.
Terhune shared that when she was house staff, lactation rooms were rare, and huddling to pump breast milk in the corner of an open workroom was often the only option during a busy schedule.
“Dr. Terhune was amazing,” Sunthankar said. “She shared all of these stories, and I really appreciate her vulnerability in that. She’s probably one of the best mentors I’ve had because she connected with us on a personal level. She gets what you need to do to be a parent, and she gets what you need to do to be a doctor.”
Today, VUMC has nearly 30 lactation rooms throughout clinical and administrative spaces, thanks to an initiative Pfaff and Sunthankar worked on with Lee Ann Liska, MBA, President and Chief Operating Officer of VUH, and others.
Sunthankar and Pfaff’s first babies, both girls, were born about a month apart. They were also pregnant at the same time in 2024 with their second babies. Sunthankar had a boy and Pfaff another girl. No doubt their PGY Parent Handbook was a welcome resource.
“Balancing work and being a parent isn’t easy,” Sunthankar said. “We hope that through this handbook — which will continue to be updated — our shared experiences and resources will help others during their time as house staff.”
“We want parents-to-be to fully enjoy their time of pregnancy and be less stressed as they build their medical careers,” Pfaff added. “And we hope that other medical centers and training programs might use our work as a model to create similar resources for their own house staff.”
