The All Boy's Club

Generally known as, "surgery," the All Boy's Club of medicine has always been particularly rough for females. I kinda sorta knew this going into school, but as a feminist and a medical student, I can now see how ingrained this model still is.

I would say that medicine, in general, is still an All Boy's Club. I guess it's not that surprising considering that in advanced science programs around our nation, men take up the vast majority of academic positions. The same is true for medicine. Now, I know it's been said that medical schools are accepting more women, etc etc, but this does not mean that it's not an All Boy's Club anymore.

Let me give some unique examples here at Tulane.

First, our anatomy class is taught entirely by ex-surgeons. They are all elderly white males, with one exception. In lab, my lab instructor (one of these elderly white male ex-surgeons) has twice told me to get a man to do a task I was trying to accomplish. The very first day of anatomy lab, while I was attempting to open our tank (the tanks hold our cadavers and the body rests at the bottom of the tank. In order to raise the body up, you must push down hard on these lever-like things), he told me to get a strong man to do it. Another time, I was trying to get the lamp set up and the outlet was up high, hanging from the ceiling, and my instructor told me to get a tall man to do it. These are both tasks that any normal, grown woman can and should be able to do. What, does he think the labs were designed specificially for men?

My friend told me a story from her year in anatomy and said that there was this one girl who performed really well on a test and the professor (one of these elderly white males) said, "And (so-and-so) did really well. She's really pretty too. I wonder how that happened." As if women can't be both beautiful and smart.

Another friend of mine told me this story from a surgical rotation his friend was on. His attending said, "There are two types of women who are surgeons: those who shouldn't be surgeons, and those who shouldn't be women."

What is most upsetting to me is not just the explicit undercurrent of sexism, but that many people in my class don't realize it's there. I was observing to my friend today that nearly all of our anatomy professors and guest lecturers have been male and she said that she had not yet noticed. And then she asked me why it mattered. I stared at her for about 10 seconds before I could respond properly.

I'm not sure if I should actually go into all the reasons why I think it matters that we have a sexually and ethnically diverse population of doctors and professors right now. I feel as if there should be an intuitive answer? Could probably save it for another blog. I just wanted to comment here on what I've observed so far at medical school and to confirm that yes, from my perspective, it is still an All Boy's Club.

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What I'm studying: Inferior and Superior coastal facets