A Tale of Two Philosophies

It has been a year since I have been in the clinical/surgical world, and perhaps understandably, I am having some anxiety about returning to it.

Yesterday, I had two interesting, yet contrasting conversations with two very different people.

The first conversation was with one of my male surgical colleagues.  He was imparting wisdom about my return to a very high pressure environment and told me that the only way I would survive is by putting on a "big personality" to compensate for my petite size and my femaleness.  Though he wasn't explicit in his characterization of a "big personality," I could easily glean what he was getting at.  Namely that I needed to act more like a male surgeon--be aggressive, speak loudly, and always be ready to tear someone's head off.  He said that unless I took on these attributes, I would be "steamrolled."

The other conversation was with one of my female non-surgical colleagues.  We were talking about how to succeed, well maybe more like survive, in medicine.  We both felt pressured to take on "big personalities" in our respective fields.  However, the crux of our discussion was that taking on "male" qualities, such as those listed above, essentially went against our true personalities. 

What would I say about my true personality?  I'm not aggressive, but I'm not passive.  I'm good at collaboration.  I like taking everyone's opinions into account--including non-MD personnel, and especially the patient.  I'm a great listener.  I like having a peaceful, humorous, respectful OR where everyone feels comfortable in pursuing the common goal of caring for a patient as best we can.  I'm good at choosing my battles and then fighting them in an honorable manner.  I like multi-tasking and being detail oriented. 

Many of my male colleagues like to proudly tell stories about how they yelled at a nurse or some other war stories.  I am proud of the fact that I can count on one hand the times that I have raised my voice in the hospital. 

Consistently throughout my training, I have been told that "female" qualities don't matter and they constitute weakness.  When I was a visiting medical student, an attending told me in a paper evaluation that I wasn't assertive or aggressive enough to be in surgery.  Maybe he was the one who lacked assertiveness because he couldn't tell me that to my face.

But I'd like to turn that around and say that my greatest strength is the fact that I've found success by staying true to my personality, and by finding partners in care instead of by making enemies.

Medicine is headed for a field change, and "customer service" is going to be a huge part of that, as evidenced by this New York Times article.

For you ladies in surgery or any other field of medicine, don't feel pressured to be something that you're not.