Editor’s Note: This account describes the intersection of gender politics, academia and professional ethics in research as well as publishing.
During my residency in orthopaedic surgery, a distinguished professor visited our institution. In accordance with the visit, I was one of the residents honored with the opportunity of presenting my research in front of him and the entire orthopaedic department. I had done a three-year clinical surgical and research fellowship sponsored by the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes for Health, prior to commencing my orthopaedic residency. In fact, I was the first female to ever be accepted into that prestigious fellowship. My research involved developing a creative and new way of studying the pathophysiology of certain types of pain. The novel ideas and execution of the research were authentically all mine and quite cutting-edge at the time.
Upon hearing the presentations of my research, the visiting professor implored the chairman of my department to ensure that I subsequently be invited to present my work at an upcoming, prestigious, national meeting, exclusively attended by orthopaedic leaders and educators.
With the opportunity arranged, my husband and I arrived at the old-world, elegant, very grand, southern hotel where the meeting was to be held. We were greeted at our car by a formally clad attendant in a uniform with a top hat and white gloves. Upon seeing all our luggage, the attendant gave me the “evil eye”, assuming that as the female, the luggage was mainly mine. Ninety percent of the baggage was, in fact, my husband’s. The next hurdle involved checking into our room. Since I was “Dr.” and my husband was “Mr.”, and our last names did not match, the reception desk personnel refused to put us into the same room. Thankfully, our matching wedding bands convinced the receptionist and thus, we overcame the hurdle.
Once housed (together), we went to register for the meeting and to collect our name tags. The registration categories include:
- Esteemed Speaker of the __________ Society
- Invited Speaker
- Non-presenter Wife
With very few female orthopaedic surgeons in the country at the time, there was no category for “Non-presenter Husband”! Since he was not a “Wife”, he was given an “Invited Speaker” name tag despite his lack of medical training, being a science-challenged person and having a bent for the humanities.
Thus, during social hours, the various departmental chairpersons always directed their attentions and medicine-based questions to my husband, totally ignoring me and my “Invited Speaker” name tag. Even after my husband kindly informed the distinguished, all male professors that I was the orthopaedic surgery resident in the family and that he knew little about medicine and orthopaedics, my husband still received the majority of the male professors’ attentions. I remained rather invisible to them.
The day of my presentation before the esteemed society arrived and my presentation was received very well. My findings generated much excitement among the attendees, who peppered me with many questions. My Orthopaedic Department Chairman was delighted with how poised I was and how well received my talk had been.
That evening at an after-dinner social event, one of the male titans of orthopaedic surgery who was revered internationally, approached us both and told my husband, “I hope you realize that you have a very talented wife.” That simple comment from one of the greats of orthopaedic surgery meant a great deal to me then, and still does, all these decades later. Words do matter, especially with the backdrop of frequently being marginalized as a professional, just by virtue of being a woman in the field.
Along those same lines, after completing my orthopaedic residency as the first women to ever do so in my program, I went on to do an 18-month orthopaedic clinical and research specialty fellowship at a very highly regarded institution. During my fellowship, I gave birth to my first child via cesarian section due to his malpositioning in utero. Despite the C-section, I was back on the job within three to four weeks. This was the 1980’s and time away from work as a surgeon, especially for a woman, was frowned upon.
Of note, I had spent a number of months, pre-delivery, doing solo intensive work on a murine research project with direct application to treating human cancers. I had completed my original research and was working on the data analysis when I needed to interrupt my efforts to undergo the C-section.
In my absence, a male orthopaedic clinical and research fellow in the program, who had done a different project that my research data corroborated, swooped in, and without my permission, added the totality of my research findings to his research data. He then submitted the paper for publication with himself as first-author. He told me, after the fact, that he had merged all my research findings into his paper, leaving me with no data to publish independently in a paper of my own. The dastardly deed had been completed and I had no recourse for correcting the injustice perpetrated.
The male “barracuda” described above, went on to have a very successful career using other people and their work to advance his own trajectory. Meanwhile, if I as a female professional, had made a great ruckus about my co-fellow’s lack of integrity and inconsiderate behavior, I would have risked being labeled as “impossible” or a “bitch”. Sadly, this was not the only time I witnessed a lack of integrity among researchers. This even extended into using erroneous information that led to the publication of inaccurate and misleading conclusions. In my opinion, this is very discouraging and disheartening.
What did these experiences teach me?
- Do not let others define you or inhibit you from pursuing your own passions and dreams.
- When your passions and aptitudes align, you will have a winning combination necessary to succeeding in your chosen progression.
- Do things with full commitment, attention to detail and the highest level of excellence. It will gain you a fine reputation and your patients will benefit greatly, because of that approach.
- Implicit biases are real blind spots. Try to show some compassion and understanding toward people you encounter who are demonstrating implicit-bias driven mistreatment of you, understanding that their prejudices reflect the societal messaging era in which they were raised—like the department chairman who proclaimed to my face: “Over my dead body will I train a woman!” In that era, shockingly, I too saw nothing wrong with that statement.
- Endeavor to become enlightened to your own blind spots/implicit biases through self-reflective practices.
Would I do my career over in the same way? Yes, but I would be bolder and call people out more when they deserved it.