六九色堂

However, statistics point to a pretty dismal percentage of women in medicine at the time my sister decided to go to medical school.  In the early 80's a mere 12% of doctors in the US were women.  Though a far better number, perhaps, than in 1849 when became the first woman  to graduate from a US medical school, still, 12% was not enough to provide encouragement for my sister.

Oh but if we could have turned forward the hands of time, she would have seen a world changed in just a few short years.  It is estimated that from 1981 to 2011, the percentage  of women doctors increased by more than 400%.  As societal prohibitions relaxed, and women became certainly more resistant to identification with limitations and career restrictions, more women stepped forward to enter and conquer a field that had for so long been all but closed to them.

In a a few years back, took a look at the changing face of medicine from the perspective of women medical pioneers and contemporary The exhibit sought to "honor the lives and achievements of women in medicine,"  many of whom "have reemphasized the art of healing and the roles of culture and spirituality in medicine."  The exhibit now holds a permanent place on the website.  Having seen the exhibit personally, I was moved by what was a struggle for equality and relevance where instead, acceptance should have been a given.

I recall my sister and mother commenting that women doctors were so rare, that they would often do double takes when Dr. So and So would appear on their floor, hair tied back in a bun, no five o'clock shadow, and prepared to do rounds.  My sister said she often felt a little embarrassed by her assumption that a doctor was  a man.  She asked me to be honest with her.  Would I or would I not assume that a doctor whom I had never met was a man, even if just out of habit?  The shocking answer was, yes.

I couldn't quite figure out why that was until I realized that I couldn't recall having met a woman doctor until well into adulthood.

My sister had a little more to say about it.  A mother of 3, she recalls wondering how any resident would be able to carry her load, and be a mom.  She said she thought it impossible until she worked with an amazing young surgical resident who was a few months pregnant, with her second child!

Even my dear friend Rona, a brilliant and provocative woman and internist, said she would have been hard pressed to believe a woman could be a surgeon and a mother without sacrificing something somewhere.  "Of course that is just my lack of experience talking," she said. "I mean, it's not like women are immune to stereotyping other women.".

Dr. Eliza Lo Chin, a regular contributor to , and author of ,writes:

The early 20th century, however, saw a decline in the women's medical movement, largely the result of multiple influences - - medical education reform, closing of all but one of the women's medical colleges, the rise of allied health fields such as nursing, public health and social work, and the changing face of medicine itself, becoming more scientific and less humanistic. Furthermore, society in the 1950's glorified domesticity, placing a women's primary role as that of homemaker. So in 1949, just 100 years after Elizabeth Blackwell, still only 5.5% of entering students were women. It wasn't until after the revival of feminism in the 1960's and the passage of Title IX of the Higher Education Act (preventing federal funded educational institutions from discriminating on the basis of gender) that these numbers began to increase significantly. In 1974, 22.4% of new medical school entrants were women; today, that figure has increased to 45.6%.

What that tells me, is that despite the odds, women are entering the field of medicine at even greater rates than ever.  Undaunted by inequity and unrestrained by circumstance, women continue to answer the call of service.  And given the extreme shortage of physicians in the US alone, we really need them now more than ever.

According to the Boston.com article, the issue of women doctors having children and needing to reduce time at work to see after their families is usually front and center in the conversation around gender and medicine.  Yet as more and more women enter the medical work force, some believe structures will have to change to adapt to women who choose to be both mom and doctor.  Rather than establishing the balance on the side of work, hospitals and healthcare systems are now having to consider a different and perhaps radical paradigm of what it means to be a working physician. And given that more and more men are taking an active role in early childhood parenting, and asking for paternity leave, it would appear these doctor-fathers will benefit from more than a century and a half of women fighting the good fight.