When Dr. Rache Simmons has a sick child to stay home with, the consequences are far greater than a few unanswered phone calls and unread e-mails.
There are patients whose appointments won't be kept and students whose classes won't be taught. Like many members of the Weill Cornell Medicine community, Dr. Simmons, the Anne and Edwin Weiskopf Professor of Surgical Oncology, plays many roles at the Medical College, and when circumstances conspire to keep her home, her absence is palpable.
To keep those absences to a minimum, the Medical College has recently partnered with Bright Horizons, an organization that offers emergency child and elder care.
"It's a way for people who work at Weill Cornell to not have to take a day off if your child is sick or your regular child care falls through," said Dr. Simmons, who recently took advantage of the program when her child care provider was out of town.
"I had a few days' notice that I was going to need help," Dr. Simmons said. "I had office hours scheduled all day and a fundraiser speech that night, and there was no way I could cancel either."
So Dr. Simmons called Bright Horizons, which sent a child care worker to her home to look after her son.
"She was lovely and my son was thrilled to pieces," Dr. Simmons said.
The diversity office also conducted a faculty climate survey in which child care emerged as a priority for both genders. Currently, Weill Cornell has no daycare facility — which prompted the contract with Bright Horizons. More than 600 faculty and staff have registered with the emergency child care program since it was created. "And it's not just women," said Dr. Leonard. "Almost as many men have signed up." But the fact remains that even today, women still tend to carry the brunt of child care or the responsibility for looking after aging parents, says Dr. Leonard. "Even though more men are taking on child and elder care roles," she said, "there is a strong belief that it's a woman's job."
Employees can give a two-hour notice to either have a child care worker come to their home or drop their child off at Bright Horizons' Lexington Avenue location.
Through Weill Cornell's partnership with Bright Horizons, employees can give a two-hour notice to either have a child care worker come to their home or drop their child off at Bright Horizons' Lexington Avenue location. The program also offers elder care, allowing employees who care for a parent or older relative to have backup care options.
Augustyne McLean, an administrative manager in the anesthesiology department, has used Bright Horizons twice since it was made available to Medical College employees. Usually McLean takes her 6-year-old son to the before- and after-school care his school provides, but when school is closed for a holiday that McLean herself doesn't share, she found herself using the all-day care at her local YMCA.
"With Bright Horizons, I was able to reserve a spot online and fill out all the paperwork online," McLean said. "Someone got back to me right away. It all went so smoothly. It was a really good experience."
The partnership with Bright Horizons is the first in several planned steps the Medical College hopes to take to help employees find a better balance between their work lives and home lives.
"We want to give employees help wherever they need it," said Lisa Abbott, senior director of human resources. "This is just one step. We are looking at full-time child care and anything else that makes working at the Medical College a better experience."