By Emily Methangkool, MD, MPH
I recently had the opportunity to serve as a panelist for the American Medical Women’s Association undergraduate chapter at UCLA. It was both incredible and inspiring to see so many young women interested in a medical career. The undergraduates asked me many thought-provoking questions that forced to me reflect on my career as a woman in medicine – instances where I faced gender bias, how being a woman has helped or hindered my career, and when I knew medicine was the right path for me. Their questions and the subsequent discussion amongst the panelists made me realize that 1) many of my experiences are common to most women in medicine, and 2) although we still have work to do in addressing disparities in pay and leadership, we have also come a very, very, long way and made an incredible amount of progress.
Most women physicians have hundreds of stories about incidents of gender bias or microaggression, and have to face these situations daily. A few examples from my own experience:
- An interviewer asked what my husband thought of my choice of a career in medicine
- Another interviewer asked whether I was planning to have more children
- A patient responding only to my (tall, white male) resident and was surprised to find I was actually the attending
- Being called “Emily” in the same meeting where my male physician colleagues were called “Doctor”
I could write a whole book about these stories, but these experiences are not unique to me, or to women anesthesiologists. Sadly, they are universal to being a woman in medicine. And even more unfortunate, the implicit bias pervasive within our organizational structures lead to problems with compensation, academic advancement, and attrition for women in medicine.
Even so, in the past decade medicine in general, and anesthesiology in particular, has made immense strides in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI). Most anesthesiology departments have a director or Vice Chair of JEDI, and JEDI committees. Our societies, including both the ASA and the CSA, have created JEDI committees and committees for women physician anesthesiologists. Groups such as Women in Anesthesiology (WIA) and Women in Cardiothoracic Anesthesia (WICTA) have promoted career and leadership opportunities for women, created mentorship relationships, and increased the visibility of women as speakers on the national stage. We are increasingly seeing women physician anesthesiologists as chairs of large academic departments and even as the dean of a medical school. There have been 4 women presidents of the ASA, 3 of whom have been within the past four years, and 7 women presidents of the CSA (the first of whom was president in 1967!). The landscape for women in medicine, and women in anesthesiology in particular, have made immense strides.
But these strides have come from the herculean effort of a few dedicated women who have broken down barriers and pushed leaders in anesthesiology to step outside of their comfort zone. And we still have a long way to go. Women comprise greater than 50% of medical school graduates, and yet make up only approximately a third of anesthesia residents and a quarter of practicing anesthesiologists. We have to address problems with attrition and pay disparity. There are still few women chairs and few women senior editors or editors-in-chief of our most prominent journals in anesthesiology. So on this National Women Physicians Day, we should celebrate all the excellent work that has come before, and recognize the important work that still has to be done.