Contemplating Death with New Life
Very early in the morning on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, I stumbled into the emergency department with my hair in a tangled mess and accidentally still wearing my house shoes.
Very early in the morning on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, I stumbled into the emergency department with my hair in a tangled mess and accidentally still wearing my house shoes.
In 2019, sexual harassment and discrimination in medicine prevent patients from receiving the best possible care. We all deserve better. Not only do all who practice medicine and care for patients deserve an equitable workplace, patients deserve optimal care provided by medical teams in which all members are respected and valued. This is why I’m proud to be a founding member of TIME’S UP Healthcare.
The sky angry. The waters murky. The fear that at any moment a sudden undertow may drag you deeper into violent waters. A creature brushes your leg, friend or foe unknown. You become paralyzed by fear, anxiety and hypervigilance. You hear someone shouting to you from somewhere far into the distance, “Get out of the water!” But you cannot see the shore. Women live in a world of fear.
“I spent the first semester in France where I studied the language.” I was about to say that I spent the second semester in my home country in South America doing research on Chagas disease when he interrupted by saying, “What a waste of time. What did learning French ever help you with?”
In the 1950s, my grandmother wanted to be a doctor. She asked her father for her dowry money, wanting to use it instead to get her medical degree to become the first female doctor in her hometown. She married another doctor and practiced from an office below her home, accepting vegetables and dry-cleaning services as pay.
In the late 1950s, my grandmother was often told, “Medicine is no place for a woman.” As a result, she went to medical school under the guise of attending a teaching college deemed appropriate by her mother. It was a difficulty journey for my grandmother to gain acceptance to Yerevan State Medical University in Armenia.