Attending Physician Contributing Writer
Guam Memorial Hospital
John Dougherty went to medical school at Northwestern University and residency at New York University. He is board certified in internal medicine and practices at Guam Memorial Hospital in Tamuning, Guam, and Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, Alaska.
Every job is different, but my experiences so far have drawn a very stark contrast to life as a resident. Now imagine, if you can: you stroll into work at whatever time you want. You round on your patients, write notes and leave. The rest of the day you give verbal orders over the phone while you hang out at the beach.
On night shift as an OB/GYN resident, you are not the same person you are when you’re among the living. It might be the long hours, the lack of sleep, or the darkness creeping in from the windows, but your temper is shorter, a pager sounding sends you over the edge, and simple nursing requests leave you sour.
On my first day of intern year, my attending corrected me in the hallway after I introduced myself to a patient by my first name. Following this, I sheepishly adopted a habit of saying “I’m Dr. Last Name” when sticking out my hand to greet a patient. In clinic, the nurses call me “Dr. Last Name,” even when saying a casual hello. When you refer to yourself as a doctor enough times, you start to believe it.
We coded the woman for forty minutes. She was forty-two, and had two kids, and was perfectly fine yesterday. Now she was gone, or going, her family in the lobby, and no one with any answers.
Another night in the emergency department in Pittsburgh’s Northside: busy, loud and chaotic. Paramedics pulled patients on stretchers and nurses pushed patients in wheelchairs through the corridors.
You are so soft / in voice and touch, / gliding through / the mines that are set in
I have always wanted to fly / but they wouldn’t let me / until I signed a contract / built on blood and tears
The grass grows tall outside my uncle’s home — he only cuts it when we play croquet. He blazes a crisscrossing trail through the sea of weeds to form a maze-like playing field. We push the white wickets into the earth, grab the mallets, and drop the balls to the ground.
“How are you doing this morning, Mr. Tracy? Sorry we’re running late. You’ve been waiting an hour.”
I wanted to know how other females in medicine felt on the subject of misogyny in medicine. I compiled a survey with 10 questions and space for comments. I used SurveyMonkey to create it, shared it publicly across social media, and trusted that only those who identified as female would complete it. The results are as follows.
We offer unique perspectives from three women at different levels of their gastroenterology careers.
Over the past 50 years, the demographics of medical school graduates in the United States has changed dramatically with the number of women (47%) almost equaling the number of men in 2014. However, the Association of American Medical Colleges reports that out of all the sub-specialties, orthopaedic surgery has the lowest proportion of female residents, instructors, assistant, associate, and full professors.
Faculty Guest Writer
University of South Florida
Dr. Joyce is the program manager for the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of South Florida, and a doctoral candidate in Higher Education Administration.
