Maybe I’m just naive. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. We were very influenced by the media. While my grandmother was a college graduate (unusual for a woman born in 2011), her main job when I was living with her was to take care of my grandfather. Dinner needed to be on the table by 4:30 in the afternoon when he got home from work, and I don’t think he touched a dish in his life. My mother was the only girl from their marriage, and her only job was to get married and produce children….but we were the generation of Enjoli women. In 1978 the now iconic commercial hit the airwaves and told me that I could have it all. I could “bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never let you forget you’re a man.”
I knew I was smart, and from the time I could remember I wanted to be a doctor – specifically a baby doctor. I had a loving and nurturing spirit and an affinity for babies. I also had a strong independent spirit. Being told I couldn’t do something just made me want to work harder. There were times in my young life when I wanted to be glamorous and famous (being the center of attention would be a dream come true for this Leo), but my passion always came back to being a baby doctor. In medicine, women tend to gravitate towards the more nurturing specialties like pediatrics and OB/GYN, and for me, this is who I was, not just what I wanted to do.
The first experience that I can remember related to gender discrimination was when I spoke to my male advisor in college about wanting to go to medical school. He told me my grades weren’t good enough and I would need to consider other options. I can’t recall why I felt his attitude and tone had to do with my status, but I did feel as if I were being talked down to at the time. I did get into medical school and found that about half of the class was female. This ratio was encouraging and demonstrated the change in the times of women being accepted into the medical field as equals – or so I thought. After medical school and residency, where I had my first child, I got a job in an upper-middle-class suburban area outside of New York City. While I was confident in my abilities, I always felt a bit like a child with a bunch of grown-ups or a puppy that was really eager to please. The group I joined was mostly older men and one older woman, so the sense of being a junior partner was very hard to shake. I would often get “fatherly” advice and never felt like a had any real authority. Ultimately I left that group and eventually moved to Arizona.
I had never really felt truly discriminated against in the east coast. Medicine was still a bit of an “old-boys” network, but I felt like it was evolving as the older people were retiring. I remember laughing when one of the older nurses regaled me with stories of how the male doctors would expect the female nurses to undress the baby, stand by for orders and then redress the baby when they came in for rounds. When I came to Arizona to interview, I fell in love with the little town in the mountains. I was impressed by the commitment to mothers and babies that I saw at the hospital. Two of the four clinical floors were devoted to labor and delivery and post-partum. They seemed to really care. It wasn’t until I moved here that I learned what real discrimination was.
It turns out that this sleepy little town was home to a very large Mormon population. Now, this didn’t bother me as I was always about “live and let live,” and had worked with other religious communities on the east coast, but little things started picking away at my psyche. During the orientation process, one of the administrative nurses told me how her daughter never got picked for the cheer team because she was not part of the LDS community. “Ridiculous,” I thought. Little was I to know.
My first inkling that there was a cultural rift was when I was reprimanded for something I wasn’t even aware that I did. Turns out this Jersey girl was to direct for southern sensibilities. Looking people in the eye and giving direct information was just not done here. It made people feel bad. Now, I was not yelling or using foul language, but I certainly don’t whisper and I definitely cut to the chase – that means get to the point for those outside of NJ. I was told by a hospital administrator that “if I’d moved to Japan, I’d have to behave like the Japanese.” Funny, ’cause I thought we were in America. I guess cultural competency applies only to patients, and not to colleagues.
That’s not to say that some people didn’t find my honesty refreshing, just not the Powers That Be. I also didn’t think it was right for my patients to get the care they deserved because others were incompetent or lazy. Speaking up for what was right did not win me any points with the administration either. I really thought they couldn’t get rid of me because they didn’t like me – wrong again. Apparently, discrimination is alive and well on the mountain. I hope to be a beacon of hope for those out there struggling with some of the same issues, but today I lost the battle. I’m trying to decide if I want to continue the war against discrimination. Stay tuned. This is not the end of my story.
I Have Food Issues 