After one month of working as a scribe in various hospitals across my suburban city, I've witnessed crippling sexist encounters. For instance, the female physician I was shadowing introduced herself to a man who abruptly ended his phone call after one demeaning sentence: "I've got to go babe, the nurse is here."
Male PAs (PAs essentially complete three-quarters of medical school in half the time) are mistakenly called "doctors" by their patients; whereas, patients unsatisfied with female PAs decisions' demand to speak to "real doctors".
I worked for a Filipino American woman healthcare provider and her patient asked for a real doctor who spoke English. My heart broke for her in that moment.
Another patient literally asked a woman doctor why she was at the hospital at 5 PM instead of cooking dinner for her children. In essence, not only men are responsible for sexist attitudes against women within the sphere of medicine.
If women are told that they must pick only one of two options -- childbearing or going far in their scientific careers -- what messages are we sending? If a woman has children but is not a physician, her susceptibility to motherhood obviously got in the way of her studies.
If a woman does not have kids and is pursuing a Ph.D., obviously her husband is suffering and so is her biological clock. If a woman has a family and has completed a rigorous degree program, it's natural to assume that either her academic research or her children are neglected.
But the reality is this: women can do incredibly well in the fields of science and medicine regardless of being married, having children, remaining child-free, or enjoying the single life. We tell women that their biological clocks are ticking away as if the livelihood of their uterus is directly related to their worth in society.
When this occurs, we tell women that they have to choose between going far in their careers or birthing children. Then we tell mothers that they ought to cut back on their time at work in order to take care of their kids. However, science gives us reason to believe that career development before pregnancy can improve women's health.
Interestingly, the myth that having children later in life is deleterious has been broken; women who have children in their mid-thirties (around the time when advanced degrees are completed) are up to 80 percent more likely to live longer than women who have kids in their twenties.
The verdict is obvious -- we all have a role in eliminating sexism in the sciences. Value your competent female healthcare providers. Read research conducted by women. Support young girls in STEM programs. Encourage scientific curiosity in your sisters and cousins.
