OK now I’m mad! I have a pretty high tolerance for media assumptions and misrepresentations unfair to those of us who are female. I do. Really. But I think I’ve hit the wall. Listen to this, from Business Week this week (here’s a hint – the article is called "Are There Too Many
Women Doctors?" ) The premise – there’s a doctor shortage in the US and: This looming shortage is forcing into the open a controversy that has
been cautiously debated in hospitals and medical practices for some time: Are
women doctors part of the problem? It’s
not the abilities of female doctors that are in question. It’s that study after
study has found women doctors tend to work 20% to 25% fewer hours than their
male counterparts.
What to discuss first? That those who work that additional 20-25% probably work too hard? That resentments build
up in their spouses and children that never go away. That the "problem" is in reality a grand improvement achieved through the work and suffering of a generation of women who fought their way through medical school, internships and fellowships and now use their knowledge both to take care of people and to still live a life of their own. Shocking!
I married my husband in 1971 while he was in medical school. Med
school classes then were only 10% women and those women had a tough
time. One of his female colleagues was thrown out of an operating room
for not wearing pantyhose under her scrubs – accused of having
"perineal fallout" – basically crotch germs. (As Dave Barry would say, "I am not making this up!") The first woman chief
resident in surgery started just before we left. She suffered too.
And that doesn’t even begin to consider the few brave woman of the
generation the preceded them, so well represented by Meredith Gray’s mom, in the body of Kate Burton.)
At their 1970s daughters had the women’s movement behind them and it
gradually became politically incorrect to openly harass women med
students. Over the years though, even these heroines have continued to
brave amazing odds.
In 1974 I helped a woman launch a book called Why Would a Girl Go into Medicine?
That’s how tough it was to even imagine the possibility. Those women fought
to be considered for good fellowships because they were women. Some
spent post-graduate years making rounds carrying a camp stool to sit
down at each bed as they presented the patient to the attending because even late in pregnancy they never missed — or asked for relief from — a day of their training. All
endured taunts, being treated, even as lowly interns, worse than their
male colleagues, being mistaken for nurses (NO being a nurse is not lesser, or bad
– but the gender assumption is.) And now, through our brave sisters,
we’ve reached our current dilemma. How terrible! Women in medicine
finding a balanced life, giving each patient great care but not taking
more patients than they can care for.
OK fine. Is that where we are? Did it never occur to these people
that the basic assumption here does not apply uniformly? Men who
"spend more time with their families" still merit cover stories and hugs on women-hosted talk shows but scratch a 3-day-a-week female
internist and apparently you find an education-wasting,
economy-distorting, sick-people-neglecting harridan. And yes, I know
I’m exaggerating but hell, Meredith may be a whiny pain, but do we
really want to go back to when many women doctors felt they had to be
like her mother?
I guess, what I’m really saying is that this makes me sad. Angry
too, as I’ve written, but really, really sad. It is 2008. I graduated
from college 40 years ago! Fought to wear pants suits with stupid tunics so they’d look like skirts (I stuck a photo her so you cold see how dumb they were – it’s the only one I have but you can see the tunic – just imagine the pants under them – to work. Fought to keep my
name when I got married. Fought to be allowed to enter the National
Press Club (as I’ve written before, women journalists had to stay in the
balcony.) Fought to work in journalism. Fought to manage coverage of
the end of the Vietnam War, the fall of Cambodia, the war in Cyprus,
the New York blackout, the Son of Sam… and was terrified to say "my son
is sick, I need to go home." I did it, gladly, but to me it was a huge
black mark when I did. I would have given anything for a four day week – or at least comprehension that I wasn’t less of a journalist because I was a committed mom.
Most of these young physicians don’t have to do many of those things, but are forced to take the blame for circumstances created by the medical economy: where doctors settle and where there are shortages, how many are admitted to med school in the first place, which specialties they choose and other facts that have nothing to do with the fact that they’re women. Nothing except the fact that they’re women, and the default objects of blame in circumstances like these.
About a month ago I wrote a post about rape in the US military; again, women left to do the suffering (on a much more hateful and physical level) while those committing the assaults were overlooked or barely punished. From crimes against women to daily working life, these issues rise in fall in our minds depending on what’s going on around us. Sometimes I forget. But never for long.
So yes, for me this is personal. It all happened to us a long time ago. It shouldn’t still be happening now.
FROM A VERY GOOD PHYSICIAN FRIEND (A WOMAN) WHO WANTS TO BE ANONYMOUS:
It’s actually a more complicated issue, than the title. Reading the article, there are extremely valid arguments and points.
It is not an issue that has any specific relevance to medicine–it is an argument for all professions and careers.
There are women who give others a bad name and take advantage of every opportunity to leave early, miss work–calling in excuses of childcare, ill children, etc.
There are women who overwork and are the hardest working members of their practice.
There are men who do the same, and there are men and women alike who are just lazy.
This is an old argument, and a constant struggle for women in the workplace, as well as their employers and partners.
If you asked my group, which has four women, and three times as many men, I’m pretty sure nobody would argue that the women are working less or taking advantage of their child-bearing and rearing duties to the disadvantage of the men in the group.
I think it is much more about the individual woman, than women in general.
With all due respect to your anonymous commenter, I think you’re exactly right.
One of my closest friends is a woman family practice doctor (including baby delivery). She works 4 days/week, and her husband is a stay at home dad to their 2 young sons.
She commented once, when we were discussing the whole work/life balance issue, that she’s worked too damn hard to get where she is to not make sure that she and her family get to enjoy the fruits of her labor.
Wow. I guess a lot of this depends on one’s perspective. I just wish the default wasn’t “It’s mom’s fault.” Even partially.
Thanks for that excellent post!!
Wow! There’s a wonderful children’s book called Alexander and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. All through the book as bad thing after bad thing keeps happening, he announces: “I think I’ll move to Australia.” He’s sure things will be better there. Given your enthusiastic response to this post, I guess they aren’t! But thanks for the comment.