Women physicians. An absolutely vital and irreplaceable part of our healthcare system. Millions of patients every year depend on women doctors to receive care and to heal. Women physicians are constantly and incrementally being asked to do more while the support is either stagnant or actively decreasing. Balancing a career as demanding as medicine while fulfilling numerous other personal roles is taking a toll, particularly in this post-COVID world.
Workplace abuse and harassment is now more frequent and much more pervasive. It is important to recognize the traumatization that is happening in these increasingly abusive workplaces within healthcare. There is an erosion of purpose and meaning in clinical work due to this traumatization, arcane administrative policies, and mindless and needless demands. Added to that, women physicians also grapple with a different but as intense expectations as a mother, wife, and daughter.
We are juggling so many responsibilities that demand a 100% from us, so many balls in the air, that it is all bound to come crashing down. And when it does, it takes a while and an immense amount of emotional energy to emerge from the black hole. Unfortunately, sometimes we can, sometimes we cannot.
For any woman physician, to successfully practice medicine, a few of the things that are necessary and urgent:
💊 autonomy
💊 respect
💊 support to focus on patient care
💊 acknowledge the damage abusive healthcare workplaces are causing and set up concrete policies to mitigate these
💊 eliminate useless administrative demands to complete odd and unbeneficial tasks
💊 strict policies against discrimination and microaggressions
💊 a thorough and fair review of reports claiming harassment instead of just doing lip-service and stop victim-shaming
💊 adequate number of sick leaves as we often have to work sick as we have to save the sick leaves for when the kids fall sick
💊 adequate maternity and paternity leave
💊 equal pay between men and women physicians (in 2025, we should not even have to discuss this but here we are)
💊 equitable treatment
💊 opportunities to grow
💊 treat our ability to give birth to little humans as a superpower and not a liability in the workplace
For those who believe things are not this bad, I welcome you to come walk in our shoes for a day. That day will seem unending and unbearable. But we have spent a lifetime living this. Hopefully, change will come, change will happen soon.
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