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Dr. Hutten-Czapski's response to the article on promoting gender equity by Drs Lent, Cohen, Dunn and Levitt makes the assumption that gender equity exists because we have medical school classes that are predominantly female. He also questions the validity of senior medical women speaking on behalf of junior medical women.
As a junior medical woman, soon to graduate from a medical class of more than 60% women, allow me to reflect:
In our medical school orientation week four years ago, the medical students a year ahead of us put on a video in which female medical students were dressed up as nurses in short skirts while the male medical students made sexual advances... A worrisome introduction to the culture of medicine, would you not agree?
Our medical school curriculum was lacking in content on women's health. Even with the existence of amazing tools to study health and illness through a gender lens, such as the Gender and Health Collaborative Curriculum Project (http://www.genderandhealth.ca), we only discussed women in the context of reproductive health... When a cardiologist was asked why a particular study focussed on men rather than on women, he responded, "Probably has something to do with the estrogen factor." Surely there is more to women than their reproductive body parts and hormones!
Women with children in medical school and residency still face numerous challenges, not least of which is the expectation that our work in medicine should take priority over all other aspects of our lives. Ontario residents and physicians can now enjoy 17 weeks of parental leave. Is this enough? What happens to our careers when we step out? Why are there so few women in senior faculty positions? Are mentoring, community involvement and advocacy work -- the kinds of things women physicians are wont to do -- given as much weight, by those on promotions committees, as scientific research and long hours at the office?
Imagine my disdain as I sat at a faculty-student retreat one day and listened to a senior physician say to the person next to him, "We have too many women in medical school." His unfortunate attitude is not uncommon. We have even seen it in public media. The term, "feminization of medicine," is used pejoratively because medicine is built on a patriarchal tradition. But, as we know from the fantastic recent study done by the QMA, we would all benefit from a shift in our model of practice. Feminization is, indeed, a step in the right direction.
We are clearly still a long way from gender equity in health. There are many young people in my class who are unaware of the challenges that lay ahead of them. It is only if the young women and men work together with the senior women and men that we can create positive change. If we can convince our faculties of medicine and our clinical departments and our medical organizations to adopt the 10 Steps to Gender Equity in Health, we'll be much closer to that goal.