Happy national women physicians day to all of the lovely lady docs out there. My grandma got her MD in a day when she wasn’t allowed to attend the boys medical school, where each hospital only had one or two female doctors on staff. Because of her I never doubted my ability to become a physician because of my gender, I never associated being a doctor with being male. According to a 2017 article in JAMA, the patients of women physicians have lower mortality and readmission rates than those of our male colleagues. Despite this fact in the 6 years since I’ve entered medical school I have been told everything from “you don’t look like a doctor” to “your voice is too sing-song-y, if you lowered it people would take you more seriously” to “I’ll wait for the real doctor” to “they let women be doctors now?” So today is for all the women who are working 80 hrs a week while trying to be home in time to put their kids to sleep, for the women who smile and ignore all the times their patients call them the nurse, for all the women who have been told that they would be a better doctor if they were more like a man, because you are strong and brave, and I am proud to stand in your growing numbers and thank all the women who paved the way for us
