career development
The History and Physical
By Caitlin Burke My mother worked full time when I was in elementary school, and when she came home I would recount my entire school day. The level of detail I included was unusual – right down to which classmates I stood behind in the single file lines we traveled in around the school hallways. According to her, I was a child with a “photographic memory.” Twenty years later, as I applied to medical school, I felt my insistence on detail would allow me to know my patients accurately and personally. During my second year of medical school, “Interviewing” was the course everyone talked about. We were finally setting foot on hospital wards, wearing white coats, and feeling like doctors. When it came to patients, some students found a natural place while others struggled to communicate. During 2009, the year of my “Interviewing” course, Medical Teacher published an article entitled:...
The Road to FACS
By Erin Garvey, MD, FACS Last October, I watched as the new 2019 Fellow initiates processed into Convocation at the ACS Clinical Congress in San Francisco. I felt excited as I imagined myself and the friends I trained with being initiated during the 2020 Convocation ceremony. Despite being in my mid-30s, I thought it would be fun to put on another black robe and march proudly into a room of surgeons as Pomp and Circumstance played for yet another time in my life. A few months later, my husband and I were thrilled to announce our first pregnancy. Given that we would have a 5 week old at the time of the 2020 Clinical Congress, we made the decision in December 2019 to not travel to Chicago for the meeting. As it turned out, (due to a global pandemic, never thought I would write that!) no one was able to...
Women Neurosurgeons Symposium- A Driver for Change
By Simone Betchen, Jamie Ullman, and Martina Stippler Women make up a small percentage (7%) of neurosurgeons in the United States according to the 2017 AAMC data. However, whenever I go to national conferences, if there are women speakers, it is limited to the same few people. Furthermore, women often find it more difficult to travel for a conference given family commitments and don’t have easy access to other means of networking with female surgeons or getting CME. This along with the inability to travel or hold conferences inspired us to start a quarterly virtual symposium entitled Women Neurosurgeons Symposium. This is a joint effort between Maimonides Medical Center, Northwell Health, and Women in Neurosurgery. The event will be free to students and residents and $10 for attendings. The event will feature all female speakers and while anyone is welcome to attend, the target audience is female neurosurgeons at any...
Tips for medical students, residents/fellows, and junior attendings looking to network in the surgical community through social media
By Jaina Lane & Tishina Tittley Networking is an important aspect of professional development. In a typical application season, medical students work hard to form connections with attendings, residency program directors, and other medical students in order to find their ideal residency home. Similar skills are needed for residents applying to fellowship, fellows looking for their first jobs, and current attendings looking to move into different and/or more advanced leadership roles. Unfortunately, due to the unforeseen circumstances that COVID-19 has presented to all of us, medical students through junior attendings now struggle with establishing the same professional relationships. Unable to interact directly with potential colleagues (e.g. current residents/fellows, potential coworkers), they may find it more difficult to assess their proper “fit.” This issue is confounded for many medical students applying this year as they also can’t do away rotations at programs they are most interested in and are missing out...
Overcoming Bias
By Joyce Majure, MD, FACS The Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) has come a long way since its founding in 1981. Looking back, it is amazing to see not only how our organization has grown, but also to see the progress we have made in our profession. Only 10% of my medical school classmates and co-residents were women. Constant comments about our looks, sexist jokes, demeaning remarks, and outright hostility were the norm. But I loved surgery from the minute I stepped into the operating room. I was warned about how bad it could be, how it was too difficult for a woman, how I would never have a family. However, I believed in myself and was not about to let a bunch of obstructionist men ruin my dreams. Women now comprise 40% of general surgery residents, and the subspecialties are making progress towards gender equity as well. The statistics...
The Token Foreigner
By Patricia Martinez Quinones “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” - Ralph Waldo Emerson Imagine receiving an email that you have been selected to present as an invited speaker at one of the largest surgical meetings. That feeling of excitement, a sense of pride, knowing all your hard work is paying off. You are wandering the hallways of your hospital and run into a senior male member of your department. Unable to contain your emotions, you share the good news, only to be met with a response of “well, looks like you’re the token foreigner.” Certainly not the response you were hoping for, not a “congratulations” or “job well done.” Your excitement, happiness and pride are now replaced by feelings of self-doubt and you sense the imposter syndrome creep back in. As a Latina in surgery my...
My First AWS Meeting
By Kristin Rojas Annual medical conferences are not only an opportunity to stay up-to-date with developments in your prospective field, but also a convenient way to catch up with inspirational friends and colleagues. The Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) Meeting in San Francisco this past weekend was no exception. With a theme of “Sculpting our Future”, it was full of sessions led by dynamic, inspirational women in surgery sharing personal experiences and insightful career mentorship. There were a wide range of attendees: from established faculty and past Presidents of the American College of Surgeons to fellows, residents, medical school and even high school students. The day began with inspirational words by AWS President Dr. Sharon Stein, followed by Dr. Carla Pugh, who shared her own journey sculpting her brand. She encouraged us to listen to those that introduce you, even if the introduction is incorrect, as your brand is what...
When the job of your dreams, isn’t.
By Melissa Alvarez-Downing This time of year always brings me back to when I was starting a new job following fellowship training. After months of searching I’d found an opportunity close to home, with the promise of research and a busy clinical practice in my specialty. The opportunity was an ideal situation for me – or at least it seemed. However, several weeks after I started, a growing sense of apprehension slowly turned into a dreadful realization that my dream job, was in fact, not. While this was certainly not an overnight realization (I was there for nearly 4 years…), and hindsight is 20/20, there are three simple lessons I learned from that experience which I wish I had known beforehand. Advocate for yourself….from the beginning. We all are aware that women suffer from the “imposter syndrome” at a much higher rate than our equally trained male colleagues. However, countering...
Residents as Teachers: Shaping the Doctors of Tomorrow
By Jane Zhao, MD, MS It’s July, which means that around the country, it’s the beginning of the academic year for medical students and surgical residents. My brand new third year medical student finally became comfortable enough to confide in me, “I chose to rotate through surgery first to get it out of the way, and I’m enjoying this experience far more than I realized. I think I want to do surgery.” I will not lie. It’s a point of personal pride every time I have a student rotate through surgery with me and successfully convince him/her to legitimately consider pursuing surgery as a career. I sincerely believe that part of being excited about surgery is being involved. Part of being involved is being invited to participate. My favorite rotations as a medical student were the ones where I was included in the resident text thread or where I held...
Fail Better
By Anne Mongiu This unexpected invitation to write a post for AWS coincided with an equally unexpected phone call from my closest friend from medical school. She had resigned from her rather substantial clinical and academic appointments, and the conversation began with, “Anne, I’m a failure…”. I happen to have expertise in this area. My first memorable taste of failure came in the 6th grade. I scored 20 points lower than the 1200 needed on the SATs in order to spend the summer studying at Duke. I was devastated. As an only child of two first generation Americans with little education and no financial resources, academic excellence was my ticket to a different future. Up to that point, I had succeeded in school with little effort. But that failure marked the day that I began to truly study and prepare, knowing that my unseen competitors were formidable. The next 25...
