Editor’s Note: This account describes how grit is a requirement for negotiating multiple obstacles along the way to reaching a goal. The outcome is triumph.
I wanted to be a “bone doctor” since the age of three. My parents have video proof of this. Where the notion came from is uncertain as neither of my parents are physicians and there were no female orthopaedic role models in my home country. I explain it as “my calling.”
I had my own firsthand experience with orthopaedic care when I sustained a supracondylar fracture of the humerus as a child. It was treated in a cast. (Yes, my carrying angles are not symmetric). Later, I was treated for other fractures and soft tissue injuries associated with sports. With each, my interest in orthopaedic surgery grew.
I was told countless times that “orthopaedics is not a specialty for women.” My family even shared this point of view. I never considered any other career and kept moving forward with the idea as decision points presented themselves.
Ironically, even after securing an orthopaedic surgery residency spot, I was told I didn’t belong there. I come from a more “sexist society” than is found in the United States. It is more male oriented. Only 3% of orthopaedic surgeons are women. Social media has helped me understand that I have been sexually harassed while pursuing my goals. It was only years later that I realized that many of the things I went through were absolutely wrong and unacceptable. However, at the time I thought it was just the way “orthopedics is.”
I experienced psychological abuse, unwanted touching, and discussion about my body during my residency program. No one stood up for me and the “He for She Award” was unimagined. There was another female my year in the program. She was more introverted, possibly because she had not been an athlete. We never discussed the treatment we both experienced. The hierarchy would not have allowed it, and our careers would not have progressed favorably had word gotten out. She remains in academia. I know nothing about the success of her career, or the happiness experienced with the work she does.
What have I learned from my experiences?
• Pursue your dreams regardless of the obstacles.
• Keep opening doors for yourself and others.
• If something doesn’t feel “right”, it isn’t.
• Speak up about harassment.
My advice to my younger self is as follows:
• Be brave.
• Stand up for what is right.
• Use social media to disseminate information about professional work conditions.
Communicate with colleagues across the globe. There are undoubtedly shared experiences needing to be discussed.
On a final note, I want to make the world going forward different for women in orthopaedics. I don’t want anyone to go through what I’ve been through during my training. I have worked to carry on a program started by my mentor where fourth and fifth grade girls are given access to saw bones and power tools to plant a seed about the joys of doing orthopaedic surgery. In addition, we make splints and casts, so they get a rounded experience of hands-on orthopaedic care. I have taken my own daughter to these events. This is a “Perry-like Initiative” for young girls.
I had never worked with a female orthopaedic surgeon until my recent fellowship. What a privilege and enlightening experience! I will stay in academia so I can make that opportunity possible for other women, and hopefully change the mentality and stereotype of orthopedics.