Gender discrimination in private practice

[Gadogirl]

I am part of a small (8 FTE) private practice and am currently 12 weeks pregnant. I have elected to minimize the amount of fluoro I do and have to go to the occasional OB visit (2 so far). The president of my group has just sent out an e-mail stating that in order to make things "fair" for the group he is starting a new policy where any time spent at "doctor's appts, etc." (I am the only person in the group that has had a doctor's appt. during regular working hours as far as I know) are logged and at the end of the year when our bonuses are paid out, there will be a deduction if we have taken any time off. Now beyond the fact that my OB visits aren't optional, I have also scheduled my appointments on the days when I'm not covering the ER so the work can pile up while I'm gone and I can clean up when I get back (I have stayed late to do so when I've been out) and I have made sure that the schedule for procedures I do have been blocked while I'm out so no one has to pick up any additional work. And he still wants to cut my pay. Am I crazy or does this seem discriminatory?

[guest]

That sounds terrible. Is this what I have to look forward to in private practice?

[Gadogirl]

Just an update on the situation if anyone is interested: I spoke to a couple of guys in my group to make sure I had their support and then approached the group's president about my OB appt. issues. Once I made him aware of the pains I had been taking to make sure that my appts were as non-disruptive as possible he backed down on the punitive pay cuts. Fortunately, there haven't been any additional repercussions and I had my son last week and am currently on my six weeks of maternity leave. I had a C-section so the next fight will be to see if I can finagle two additional weeks unpaid.