What Can Women Do?

As a first-year medical student there is one thing I would tell my younger self, don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t work in STEM simply because you are a woman. When I was younger, I always gravitated toward science kits and microscopes. My brother got an eye clop, which was a microscope you could attach to the TV. I was fascinated by scabs and other oddities that the microscope made bigger than life. Five minutes later, my younger brother could not be bothered. From a young age, I was programmed to think I could not be part of science and medicine because I was a woman. While I applied to medical schools, my parents would question how becoming a physician would impact my future family life and tried to dissuade me from applying. In fact, it is because I am a woman, I can be both career-driven, and family-driven.The average age for women applying to medical school in 2014-2015,2015-2016,2016-2017 has been about 24 to 25 years of age, according to AAMC. In the 2019-2020 application year women made up 53.5% of applicants and 53.7% made up the matriculating class according to the AMA. The AMA also has information on which are the top female-dominated specialties which include: Obstetrics and Gynecology, Allergy and Immunology, Pediatrics, Medical Genetics and Genomics, Hospice and Palliative Medicine, and Dermatology. While male-dominated fields include Orthopedic Surgery, Neurological Surgery, Interventional Radiology, Thoracic Surgery, Pain Medicine, and Radiology. The female-dominated fields are those that focus more on long-term patient care as opposed to the more male-dominated specialties that focus on crisis management. I wondered if a woman’s decision to enter a specific residency correlates to the time a woman decides to grow a family. Reading an article from Kevinmd gave me insight into what it looks like from inside a male-dominated field written by Qaali Hussein, a female surgeon. She described the different reactions that men and women receive about having children in the workplace. A man is praised for having children while a woman is viewed as if she is incapable of working full time or being able to work in a demanding field because she has children. Due to the disparities and lack of maternity support, women have to turn to other fields that will allow that flexibility and potentially abandon passions and leadership positions. The AAMC in a data report for 2018-2019 states, that while the rate of women entering medical school has increased, women only make up 18% of health department chairs. Women are not represented in leadership. According to an article in Industry Training, four possible factors that can hold women back from leadership roles include a lack of access to casual networking. There are male-exclusive causal networks such as golfing that women do not have access to.  Stereotyping and gender bias is the second barrier to woman’s access to leadership roles. The thought that certain roles are exclusively male or female is damaging to a woman’s capability for leadership. The third reason is women feel like they cannot reach these leadership positions and do not lean into them in the first place. Lifestyle is also a barrier to women entering leadership. Women are perceived as having a dual role, one where she is both career-driven and family-driven as opposed to the belief that men are considered to have solely one job, their career. This lack of balance puts women in a position where they have to do these two full-time jobs perfectly. I believe a fifth reason exists that hinders women’s ability to reach leadership is the lack of female mentorship. As mentioned previously there are a lot of barriers that can prevent women from entering leadership, however, having a female mentor can help women navigate the balance between mother and career as well as give advice on how to advance their careers.To combat barriers that prevent women’s access to leadership positions, there are some steps to consider. It’s important to recognize our own bias to what female and male roles mean and how both men and women can enter the workforce as well as take responsibility for childcare.  I think we can slowly bring a change in the industry mindset by having female mentorship and encourage goal-reaching and not undermining ourselves in our career because we also want a family. It is important to understand that women are undermined for their abilities because there is an assumed responsibility for child care and a belief that ascertaining a new role as a mother makes you less capable of the job that you were previously doing. I don’t think this controversy really comes to the forefront of our minds till women are deciding to build a family. When I first started learning about women’s struggle in leadership, I read Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg. She mentions the importance of women leaning into their careers. The part of the book that stood out to me the most is when she discussed how women leave the workplace slowly by making decisions that they think will benefit their family in the future instead of jumping at opportunities for leadership even before she has a child. Another part that I appreciated is where she talks about the difficulty it is to balance work and having a family and that it requires flexibility and understanding that the goal should not be perfection. As I continue my journey through medical school, I am reminded that because I am a woman, I can be both a mother and have a career, and it is ultimately what I decide to choose and not simply chosen for me. Works Cited

1.  Table A-6: Age of Applicants to U.S. Medical Schools at Anticipated Matriculation by Sex and Race/Ethnicity, 2014-2015 through 2017-2018. , AAMC.
2.  The State of Women in Academic Medicine: Exploring Pathways to Equity. AAMC, 2018-2019.
3. Andrews, Dr. Shawn. Gender Barriers and Solutions to Leadership. Training Industry, 27 Jul. 2020. 
4. Hussein, Qaali, et al. The Stigma of Motherhood in Medicine. KevinMD.com, 25 Oct. 2019. 
5. Murphy, Brendan. These Medical Specialties Have the Biggest Gender Imbalances. AMA, 1 Oct. 2019.
6. Murphy, Brendan. Women in Medical Schools: Dig into Latest Record-Breaking Numbers. AMA, 29 Sept. 2021.
7. Sandberg, Sheryl. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. ‎ Knopf, 2013.

Author Bio

  Andrea Murciano is originally from Florida, United States of America. She is currently living in Beer Sheva, Israel where she is attending medical school at BGU-MSIH Class of 2025. She graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s of science in biology in 2019 and a master’s in molecular biology and biochemistry in 2021. She is excited to share her love for medicine as well as her interests about global health and health disparities. She hopes she can share her experience going through medical school as well as empower women through leadership.