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A monologue in the style of America Ferrera's character Gloria in the Barbie movie ( by Greta Gerwig).
It is literally impossible to be a woman in medicine. You can be at the top of your class in medical school and residency, and yet you will never think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be infallible, but somehow, we're made to feel it's never enough. .
As a woman in medicine, you have . And you can never say you want to be ambitious. You have to say you want to be successful, but also you have to be humble. You need but can't ask for because that's crass.
You have to be a leader, but . You have to run the code, but . You're supposed to find time to be a mother, but . You have to .
You have to . You're supposed to stay attractive for men but or that you threaten other women because then the .
But always be the last one to leave and always be resilient. But never forget that . So find a way to acknowledge that but also .
You have to never get tired, never be wrong, never brag, never ask for time off, never sleep, never fail, never be late, . It's too exhausting! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or a raise.
And it turns out, in fact, that not only does research show patient outcomes are better for women physicians than men, but also you're still not getting equal pay. To the tune of $2 million less over the course of a career.
I'm just so tired of watching myself and every other woman in medicine tie herself into knots to reach some impossible standard that doesn't exist. And still, despite all our hard work, we often won't be called "Doctor."
, is a novelist, award-winning essayist, rural hematology-oncology physician, wife, and mom. Mid-career, Lycette discovered the power of narrative medicine on her path back from physician burnout and has been writing ever since. Her essays can be found in the Intima, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and other journals. She can be reached on , , , and .
Her books explore the overarching theme of humanism in medicine. Her first novel, (Black Rose Writing Press), a near-future medical thriller, is available now. Her second novel, , a prequel in the form of a near-historical medical suspense, is available in and on .
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