Thursday, December 12, 2013

Sexism & Surgery

by Amalia Cochran, MD, MA, FACS, FCCM

How many of you saw this great piece from Emily Graslie a couple of weeks ago? 

 



I loved this video for a couple of reasons. One is obvious if you are familiar with her work- Emily’s video series from The Brain Scoop is a terrific, user-friendly approach to science. The other was that I honestly empathized with the comments that Emily included in her video, as I suspect many of us do, and I loved her approach to dealing with sexism and science. She’s no-nonsense about it and addresses the issue head on.

I thought back to my first encounter with sexism in medicine, going back to high school. Our family’s physician, upon being told that I was leaving for college at the end of my junior year under an early admission program with intent of going to medical school, simply commented, “Well, I guess it’s okay for women to be physicians these days.” No, he wasn’t joking. No, he never treated me again (nor my mother). I’ll admit- this was almost 30 years ago, and with the entry of more women into medical school many things have changed. Or have they?

Plenty of research shows that female medical students often experience gender discrimination, and that this occurs most commonly on their surgical clerkships. Women medical students are more likely to experience gender discrimination during their surgical clerkship than are their male counterparts and are more likely to perceive sex discrimination, typically from male attendings and male residents. My own recent work has shown that female surgeons and residents are more concerned about the presence of sex discrimination in the workplace than are their male colleagues, and that they perceive this discrimination as a barrier to advancement in academic surgery. Clearly this problem isn’t just one of the 1980s; it persists in modern-day medicine.

Stories of incidents can be gathered easily enough from many sources; in one night on Twitter I was able to acquire stories ranging from colleagues or patients refusing to address a woman physician as “Doctor” to women being told they are “too nice” to be a surgeon, or being told that they are allowed to do more in the OR because of their looks. While the overt sexism remains, many institutions are starting to consider the role of “implicit bias,” those subtle behaviors and actions that manage to undermine the leadership and credibility of any minority group. Yes, women surgeons are still a minority group.

So back to where we started, with Emily Graslie’s video. We have a problem still, and what we need is a solution. We can start by speaking up when we hear sexist comments- particularly those of us who are a little more senior and have less to lose than our younger colleagues. We can also work within our institutions to increase awareness of implicit bias in hopes that this will have a durable impact. And, as Emily Graslie stated, “We need to make sure we’re making it possible for people of all genders to feel acknowledged for their contributions and not feel held back by something as arbitrary as their genetics or appearance.”

How have you experienced sexism? And, perhaps more importantly, how have you dealt with it when you have either experienced it or witnessed it?


This post was originally published on Dr. Cochran's blog, Life in the Wild West.
 
~~~

Dr. Amalia Cochran is Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Utah. She is heavily involved in undergraduate medical education, serving as the Surgery Clerkship Director and the Director for the Applied Anatomy track for 4th year medical students at the University of Utah. Her research interests lie in surgical education and in clinical outcomes in burns. She is Vice President of the Association of Women Surgeons. Follow her on Twitter. Visit her blog

5 comments:

  1. I am 62. The least discrimination I perceived was in med school and residency.

    ReplyDelete
  2. See the help for the link of the sexism and find the surgery now a days and the other links related to this.You can find the good site here and can make the perfect deal which can really help you in the nice pattern.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Surgery of the sex has been done for the acute problems for the individuals. The change of the surgery and follow the link for the acquisition of the terms. The struggle is done for the opposite items for the individuals.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Surgery of the sexism is recommended for the removal of the extra items from the body. The visits of the http://www.observershipguide.com/surgery-observership/ have been marked for the people. The new scheme is highlighted for the consumtion for the men in different colors for the humans in life.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You will discover the excellent internet site below which enable it to create the ideal cope which in turn can really help anyone inside wonderful structure http://www.cardiologyfellowship.net/university-of-miami-cardiology-fellowship-program/.

    ReplyDelete