URiM
Issues faced by the female surgical trainees in developing countries
By Dr. Eshana Samaranayake Across South Asia, women are still a small minority in surgical training programmes, and that imbalance shapes daily experiences in ways that are easy to miss from the outside. ‘‘Surgery is for men’’ I have wanted to become a surgeon since high school, but when I prepared for the entrance exam I heard frequent warnings from family, friends, and colleagues. Much of it was well-meant, yet it rested on an assumption: surgery is too demanding for women to balance with personal life, especially where women are expected to carry most household responsibilities. Those expectations sometimes made me doubt myself, not because I lacked interest or motivation, but because I wondered how I would fit into a role society does not always picture for women. I feel fortunate to have been selected for surgical training, and I am now in my third year of general surgery residency....
What Surgeons Can Learn from Greek Myth: A More Effective Mentorship Model
by Taylor Corsi, MD; Elise Presser, MD In Homer’s The Odyssey, Athena – protectress and goddess of wisdom, practical reason, handicraft, and war strategy – disguises herself as Mentor, a counselor who guides Telemachus in his journey to find his father and restore the kingdom of Ithaca. This story has framed the modern conception of mentorship as an intergenerational relationship between mentor and mentee that benefits the mentee’s growth and accomplishment of stated goals. While the importance of mentorship is clear in the story, the perception of how mentorship is best achieved is worth reinvestigating. Upon closer inspection of our beloved Greek myth, Athena’s wisdom was provided not merely from her form as Mentor. Importantly, Athena also disguised herself as a shepherd and the daughter of a ship captain. While many scholars have classically attributed Telemachus’ success to Mentor’s guidance alone, Athena advises a diverse network of figures who contribute...
Stereotypes of physical appearance for women in medicine
By Olivia Charles, MS4 “Do you play basketball?” “What are you doing here?? You should be modeling!” “You’re wasting your height.” If I had a penny for every time someone said one of those lines to me during my journey through medical school, I could probably pay off my student loans entirely. I was always slightly taller than my peers since I was a kid, but I really had my growth spurt in high school. Being 6’ as a woman tends to attract a lot of attention–attention that for me was unwanted for a long time, particularly during my time in medical school. There has not been a single day where someone hasn’t asked me how tall I am, if I played sports, or what I'm doing in a hospital when I should be on a runway. While coming from a sincere place, these “compliments” always felt backhanded to me....
Bridging the Gap: Female Surgeons in Malawi and the Power of Representation
By Dr. Sharon Cheryl Bonya Female surgical trainees face structural and cultural barriers that extend far beyond the operating room. They are not just training to master technical skills, they are also navigating expectations, isolation, and leadership in spaces where their presence still surprises many. In Malawi and across much of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), female surgeons face a double burden: under-representation within the surgical workforce and the cultural headwinds that make leadership, mentorship, and progression more difficult. Despite recent gains in training capacity in East, Central and Southern Africa, women surgeons remain a minority with implications for patient trust, communication, and equitable access to surgical care. According to the NHS workforce data, women make up about 17% of general surgery consultants in the United Kingdom. In the United States, women account for roughly 22.6% of general surgeons, based on figures from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). These numbers...
Cutting Through Grief: How Surgery Helped Me Reclaim My Strength
By Meaghan Bethea The first time I stepped into the operating room after my husband died, I wasn’t sure I could do it. Everything felt too raw. Too loud. Too precise for a mind muddied by grief. The sterile light above the surgical table illuminated more than just anatomy; it revealed the parts of me I had been trying to keep buried. Heartbreak. Fear. Uncertainty. I was scrubbed in, masked up, holding retractors with steady hands, but inside, I was anything but that. In the summer of 2023, I had just completed medical sciences, passed Step 1, and was preparing to start clinical rotations. At home, my husband and I had found a rhythm. He managed the household so I could pursue my dream with full focus. We were building a life together with our son. Then, suddenly and without warning, two weeks before third year, he died. I became...
Navigating the Transition from Residency to Fellowship
By Brienne Ryan You think one would be used to this by now. As medical professionals, we transition frequently into new environments, new roles with new responsibilities. It is the dogma of medical training that we gain graduated autonomy with each step we advance and the closer to attendingship we become. So, what makes fellowship different and why do some struggle? If you are one of the hundreds of fellows in the early months of fellowship who find yourself uneasy about your performance, uncertain about your decision, or just plain overwhelmed with your new position, please know that you are not alone. Struggling during fellowship is commonplace and these might be a few reasons why. Fellowship is an entirely different beast from residency. First and foremost, it is a much smaller cohort of peers. When I graduated from surgical residency, a friend and prior senior co-resident said something that I,...
Finding My Flow: My Pursuit of Vascular Surgery in a Country Without Dedicated Vascular Surgery Training
By Dr. Swechha Bhatt My love for vascular surgery began in the very first year of medical school, when I studied hemodynamics. The intricate balance of pressure, flow, and resistance fascinated me, and somehow it all made sense. I carried this love with me into my clinical years, where the subject transformed from textbook diagrams into real patients and real problems. In clinics, every vascular case felt like a puzzle waiting to be solved. I often describe vascular surgery as “plumbing: it’s pipes, and you connect pipes.” Yet behind that simple analogy, I began to see the enormous gaps in access and awareness that patients in my country face. Patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) would walk into our hospital with critically cold limbs, many at the point of requiring an amputation. I often wondered how different their lives could have been if they had recognized claudication earlier, or if...
The Six Percent Club
By Dr. Susana Vargas Pinto This is a special edition blog post presented in partnership with the Latino Surgical Society in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. For 57 years, Latino heritage has been officially recognized in the United States. What began as a week-long celebration in 1968 under President Lyndon B. Johnson was expanded to a month-long observance by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. Hispanic Heritage Month offers an opportunity to honor the significant role the Latino community has played in shaping and strengthening our nation. Although the terms “Latino” and “Hispanic” are often used interchangeably, they have distinct meanings. “Hispanic” typically refers to people with a connection to Spain or the Spanish language, while “Latino” encompasses individuals of Latin American or Caribbean descent, regardless of their proficiency in Spanish. The term also creates space for diverse ethnic and ancestral backgrounds, including those of European descent, to be acknowledged within...
Called to Step In
by Brett Weinstein *This story was shared with permission from involved parties. I didn’t wake up that morning expecting to deliver a baby in a car parking lot. I was a fourth-year medical student on a surgery sub-internship, just finishing a long day in the OR. When I walked through the parking lot, I noticed a couple frantically waving me down. The woman was in labor, her face clenched with pain, her husband pacing at her side, panic in his eyes. “Hi my name is Brett, I’m a medical student, can I take a look?” There was no time to wait for help. She was crowning. My heart pounded, but my feet moved before my mind caught up. I jumped into the backseat of their truck, barehanded, adrenaline roaring in my ears. For a moment, the world narrowed to just us – the mother, the baby, and me. Dark hair...
Operating Through Loss
By: Wissam Benhami Content Note: This post contains discussion of pregnancy loss, a topic that may be difficult for some readers. It was a Thursday afternoon when I walked out of the OR and drove straight to my gynecologist. The room was quiet and I let myself believe this was just another routine visit. My mind was already on the weekend ahead. He shifted the probe once, twice, and finally stopped. His voice was quiet, almost apologetic. There was no heartbeat. I nodded as he spoke, but his words dissolved before they reached me. I left the office with the image burned into my mind, a still, motionless curve on the screen and a weight in my body that felt both heavy and hollow. The next morning was Friday. A patient we had operated on the day before needed her discharge. I hadn’t slept a single hour. My eyes were...
