Last updated on March 13, 2019
Happy week of International Women’s Day 2019 (IWD2019)!
In the spirit of this year’s IWD2019 theme, #BalanceforBetter, I pulled together this collection of posts from and about women in medicine. I hope you will draw inspiration from them for your own lives and practices.
1. Being a Woman, by Dr. Anne Malatt
An uplifting reflection on our lives as women and physicians.
Excerpt:
In medicine, I am seen as a woman at times when it suits some agendas, and not seen as a woman when it does not suit. But no matter what veils I am seen through, I am and remain a woman. Being a woman does not define me, any more than being a wife, a mother, or a doctor does. But being a woman has affected me.
excerpt from Being a Woman, by Dr. Anne Malatt, posted on To Medicine With Love
2. IWD 2019: Suffragettes and medical women – examining the ‘jealous mistress’
An insightful historical perspective on the conflicts faced by women physicians a century ago.
Excerpt:
‘Medicine is a jealous mistress and those who would win her favours must not worship at any other shrine’. This was the advice that a staff member at the London School of Medicine for Women gave her female students in the early twentieth century. The shrine she referred to was the movement for women’s suffrage – a battle which was then being bought by moderate suffragists and militant suffragettes alike. But where were women doctors in fighting for what Elizabeth Garrett Anderson called ‘the cause’? Could you be a suffragette and pursue a medical career?
article byDr. Kristen Hussey, Royal College of Physicians, head curator
see also the weeklong series of articles for International Women’s Day, at the Royal College of Physicians’ website
3. Honor National Women Physicians Day With Self-Care
By Stephanie Graff, MD, FACP
I related very much to this post on by Dr. Graff, an oncologist and mom like myself. She reminds us not to neglect ourselves as we take care of everyone around us.
Excerpt:
I am every woman. I drive my kids to soccer, serve as housekeeper, personal shopper, family chef, and childhood conflict arbitrator. I am the queen of bedtime stories and the singer of bedtime songs. I am an event planner—coordinating dates with my husband and epic birthday parties. I am a travel agent, scheduling and planning all our vacations. I am the Chief Operating Officer of the Graff family scheduling home repairs and services, management of essential supplies, and coordinator of schedules. I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend. But I am also a physician, breast oncologist, principal investigator, leader, researcher, and scientist. #IAmBlackwell. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell—the first woman physician and the rallying cry of women physicians everywhere. But here’s the complicated whole truth, the piece I do not always get right: Somewhere, in the middle of all that, I am supposed to take care of myself.
Dr. Stephanie Graff
From celebrating the strength in our femininity, to remembering and honoring our trailblazing predecessors, to not losing sight of ourselves, why not take a few more minutes for yourself and check out the full articles above!
See also my related posts on this site:
- Don’t Call Me Lucky: on female physicians experiences of gender bias from patients
- Stay at home dads and the movie The Incredibles 2: a missed opportunity
- Working moms who are doctors: how many are there in the U.S.? The number will surprise you
- Parenting stereotypes, and turning them on their head. “My mom is a doctor, my dad is a dad.”
- Mom guilt and the physician mom: Doing Enough; not Perfection
- Doctor title and gender. The Doctor is In; the Mrs. is Out: forms of address toward female physicians
- Female physicians: On perceptions, from planes to preschools