One of the things I find truly amazing is how intact the "glass ceiling" is between the sexes within the arena of medicine, even in this day and age it's still very noticeable. I can't count how many times I've seen a more knowledgeable female counterpart get "grilled" in rounds for not knowing something, while the males are treated with kid gloves. I can easily think of 10 examples where a female medical student would be put down by the doctors/nurses or where males weren't expected to do as much scut-work. How about a personal example (the reason I'm bringing this up), I'm able to, at the very least, get 2-3 hours of sleep on call each night (usually 4-5) - while it may be because I communicate well with the nursing staff or maybe that I'm just lucky - most likely it's because they won't wake me up unless it's really important (my attending calls it "prince syndrome")...I found out today that for the girls (Karly, Jen, and Linda) they usually get 1-2 hours on call and are usually woken up for stupid reasons - normal laboratory test values, ect. (The attendings were relating this to me) Whether or not that is true, I do see a noticeable difference in the respect given to me, versus one of my female counterparts, by the patients and nurses. You'll hear an occasional irritated, "Yes, I AM a doctor." or "NO I'm not the nurse." from one of them in talking with a patient. Occasionally they've even ran into problems with patients vehemently disagreeing with their clinical plans...only to easily comply when the male attending says the same thing (if any, it hasn't happened to me much). On a more national scale, only recently have females reached equal numbers in medical schools and I've often heard the complaint about female attendings making less than their male peers (although this is unverified).
I honestly don't think this "rift" has an easy solution or maybe even "A" solution. This is one of those things that remains in place due to a societal thing (ie. both males AND females keep it in place...regardless whether it's a doctor, nurse, or patient).
You can't sue a patient for being sexist (maybe but realistically it would be stupid). You can't sue female staff for being "nicer" to the guys. You can't yell at someone for assuming you are a nurse. It doesn't make any of it "right" or "acceptable", but the alternative would be a medicine even more full of silly rules and regulations than it already is (ie. You can't interupt a female resident during rounds or wake her up more times than you wake up an average male intern during call). Pushing something like that through would probably be more detrimental to medicine than allowing this quiet sexism to continue, because of the implications it would have for putting other overly bureaucratic rules in place.
Nope, nobody, female or male, will be shattering that "glass ceiling" anytime soon, so if you are a female thinking about becoming a doctor, (like it or not) you better bring your $#&%-wading boots and a thick skin...me...I'll bring my pillow (joking..sorry couldn't help it).
Newbie Doc
Elliot is sick of being called "Sweetheart" by the chief of medicine.
Sometimes you feel like this is how Government must work when you hear about health care reform...instead of passing a cohesive intern work hours plan...they instead opt to pass only part of it...It's like going in for a root canal and the dentist quits after only numbing you up...and then charges you for it.
