Ambivalent sexism within medicine: reflections from four medical students

‘Are you sure you can handle it?’

‘You’re quite bossy, you’d fit right in.’

‘When will you have time for kids?’

‘Oh, your partner wants to become a surgeon? Great news for you!’

‘Nurse, can you get the doctor for me?’

‘It’s good you’re making the sacrifice to become a general practitioner now — means more time for your family!’

As female medical students it is difficult to ignore the detrimental impact of such comments on our self-confidence and career considerations. Throughout medical school we’ve experienced and observed obvious gender disparities — during clinical placement encounters, discussions with medical professionals, and casual career talks with peers.

During clinical placements, we noticed differences in gender representation in certain specialities. One was trauma & orthopaedics (T&O). During morning handover our curiosity was piqued when we witnessed the dynamic between male and female doctors. Male doctors demonstrated their clinical acumen with comfortable confidence, unlike their outnumbered female colleagues. We noticed the latter would often shy away from voicing their opinions and looked more anxious when questioned by senior colleagues. When handover had finished and we had the opportunity to strike up a conversation we were disheartened by the similarity between our speculations and the female junior doctors’ thoughts. There was no hint of dislike towards T&O itself — far from it. However, they admitted the atmosphere precipitated by gender dynamics had made their experience less enjoyable. They mentioned how not having many female consultants around also dissuaded them from confidently feeling part of the team.

It seemed that problems weren’t just arising from the immediate team. During multiple encounters with other healthcare professionals, assumptions were made that they couldn’t be T&O doctors because of their ‘frail’ physique, since T&O was ‘manually arduous’. These opinions weren’t just confined to T&O. One female intensive care …