Women’s History Month Boasts Many Influential Women Physicians—And YOU are One of Them!
Can you name 50 women who have shaped and re-shaped the healthcare workplace? How about just one woman who won a Nobel Prize in Medicine? Not as easy as one might think. Why? Because women in the professions, especially women physicians, are terrible at self-promoting and even worse at promoting each other!
It doesn’t have to be that way. What are our barriers, our challenges? First, we have to overcome societal expectations of the way we “ought” to behave. It’s not lady like to toot your own horn. As Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg points out, we need to let go of the “tiara” syndrome and stop waiting for others to see how wonderful we are.
Overcoming internalized insecurities that we are just not as good as the guys is the second challenge. We are our own worst enemies as we try to live up to impossible standards. Self-help is not the only help. We can and must seek out women we know have what it takes and get them into positions where they can do the job.
We owe it to ourselves and each other to get the word out about what and how we are doing. It ain’t bad, but it could be a whole lot better. Our parity in numbers is not equal to our parity in power. When we no longer have to look back and see only 50 role models in more than a 120 years of women in medicine, then we know that women’s history month will be just that. History.
— Linda Brodsky & the WMDR Team |