women
The Surgeon Everyone Wants to Work With
Author: Smruti K. Patel, MD FAANS FACS FCNS FAAP Every surgeon remembers them. The attending whose operating room felt calm even during chaos. The surgeon whose team was fully engaged. The leader whose nurses, residents, anesthesiologists, and colleagues genuinely looked forward to working with them. Their technical skill may have been exceptional but that wasn't what made them memorable. What set them apart was how they made others feel. In medicine, we spend years developing our technical abilities. We learn anatomy, master procedures, and refine our clinical judgment. Yet, as our careers progress, it becomes increasingly clear that technical excellence alone is not what defines the most effective surgeons. The surgeons who have the greatest impact are often the ones who build trust, inspire confidence, communicate clearly, and create environments where teams can thrive. In other words, they become the surgeons everyone wants to work with. Technical Excellence Is Expected...
Common Is Not Always Normal: An OB/GYN’s Reflection on Women’s Pain and the Silence We Inherit
By Busra Ozkaya, MD There is a sentence many girls hear from the time of their first menstrual period: “This is normal. It is just part of being a woman.” Most of the time, this sentence is spoken with kindness. It is meant to comfort a young girl, to ease her fear, and to remind her that she is not alone, but over time, the same sentence can become something else: a quiet curtain drawn over pain. As an obstetrician-gynecologist, I have learned that the word “normal” must be used carefully. Common is not always normal.Familiar is not always harmless.Pain that changes a girl’s or woman’s life deserves more than reassurance alone. During my OB/GYN training, I met many women who had carried pelvic or menstrual pain for years before giving it a name. Some had missed school, work, family responsibilities, or important moments in their lives because of symptoms...
Before I am a Surgeon: Choosing Womanhood Without Leaving Surgery Behind.
By: Daniela H. Rodriguez Manrique "Since you want to become a wife and have kids," he said, "are you sure you want to do surgery?" I smiled politely, but I cannot recall what I said next. The only thing I remember is the question lingering in my mind after I left the operating room. "Do I want to be a woman, or do I want to be a surgeon?" Prior to this moment, I had not imagined that these two identities could be mutually exclusive. For the first time, I had doubts about becoming a surgeon, and as a medical student, I questioned if pursuing surgery meant I had to sacrifice the woman I wanted to become. Many women in surgery have encountered some version of this question. Sometimes, the question is asked out loud. Other times, it is implied. As I think of a future surgical residency, I have...
Emily Blackwell Did More Than Just Operate Against the Odds, She Built a Legacy of Inclusion
By: Aeryn Kangas-Dick, MD This is a special edition blog post presented in partnership with the Association of Out Surgeons & Allies (AOSA) in celebration of Pride Month. In 1854, a pioneer in surgery, Emily Blackwell was the second woman in the United States to receive an MD degree at what is now Case Western Reserve University.. She practiced surgery in lower Manhattan where, along with fellow surgeon Marie Zakrzewska, and her sister Elizabeth Blackwell, she was instrumental in founding a women’s hospital, the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. The hospital added a medical school, which trained 364 women surgeons before closing in 1899. Dr. Blackwell first met Elizabeth Cushier when she was a student at the medical school. The pair lived together for the rest of their lives, and they raised a daughter together. Dr. Blackwell was instrumental in advocating for state funding for the hospital, which...
Trusting Your Own Hands: Lessons from the OR
By: Dr. Wissam Benhami, MD, General surgeon Affiliations: Université des Sciences de la Santé (Youcef El Khatib) – Algiers, Algeria and Clinique Rahmouni Djilali (formerly Les Orangers), Chikh El Bachir El Ibrahimi, El Mouradia, Algiers Every surgeon faces moments when they feel like even though their hands know the truth, doubt pushes them to look outward for guidance. I often remember this playing out in two operations linked by the same thread. My hesitation was replaced by reassurance from someone who had not lived through the case from the beginning. The first case was an emergency colectomy in an unstable patient. The resection was complete, and the question was a familiar one. Should I restore continuity or divert the patient? The tissues were distressed and the patient’s physiology was fragile. My colleague also hesitated. It was not ignorance in either of us. Instead, it was the quiet calculations surgeons make...
The Art of Seeing Differently: Surgery Through Dr. Patricia Bath’s Lens
By: Julia Vasquez-Gonzalez and Dieynabou Diallo This is a special edition blog post presented in partnership with the Society of Black Academic Surgeons in celebration of Black History Month. Throughout everyone’s individual medical training, we are often guided to find mentors, to read, and to seek purpose. Nowadays we are taught: “if they can do it, so can you”. But can we transport to a time, not so long ago, when that was just a dream? In the 1940s in Harlem, New York, amid war, music, and hope, Louis Armstrong’s Jazz tunes played. In one of these specific homes in Harlem, Dr. Patricia Bath’s parents reminded her to “never settle for less than your best”, and so she didn’t. From an early age, Dr. Bath showed an interest in science and service. Inspired by Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s medical work in the Congo and shaped by her upbringing, she pursued medicine...
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...
A Common Silence: Perspectives on Pregnancy Loss During General Surgery Residency
by Cleo Siderides, MD and Caitlin J. Cain-Trivette, MD Pregnancy loss is a painfully common experience among surgical trainees, yet our institutions remain poorly equipped to respond with support and compassion. Surgical trainees are more than twice as likely to experience pregnancy loss than the general population,1 yet no formal safeguards exist to protect trainees enduring these sentinel events. Cleo’s first pregnancy ended in a missed miscarriage at 9 weeks, followed by six weeks of medical and surgical management amidst the relentless pace of residency. The day after I took medication to induce a miscarriage I was on a 24-hour trauma call, bleeding through my scrubs to the point that I tied a jacket around my waist between cases. I emphatically stated that no, I did not feel like I needed to step away from work. I saw the hardship as a way to prove my grit and worth as...
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...
