venting about female surgery residents

[SalseraDoctora]

I am a woman medical student, third year, and I (apparently like an imbecile) expected female surgery residents to treat female medical students with a little bit of compassion or at the very least politeness during our surgery clerkship. Instead I have found that there are two kinds of women surgery residents: (1) the ones who have not forgotten that they are women and also seem to be nice to female med students and (2) the kind that have mustaches and are total witches to female medical students and spend their entire day sucking up to attendings try as hard as they can to be one of the guys.

This does not seem to be true about female residents in any other field. Does surgery just weed out most of the women with social skills?

I used to want to find a surgical residency with lots of women residents, but now I am thinking it would be better to find one with mostly guys.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[MattD]

I am a woman medical student, third year, and I (apparently like an imbecile) expected female surgery residents to treat female medical students with a little bit of compassion or at the very least politeness during our surgery clerkship. Instead I have found that there are two kinds of women surgery residents: (1) the ones who have not forgotten that they are women and also seem to be nice to female med students and (2) the kind that have mustaches and are total witches to female medical students and spend their entire day sucking up to attendings try as hard as they can to be one of the guys.

What like a club?

Doesn't it make more sense to complain about gender-neutral residents treating gender-neutral students with no respect? Why does your sex matter?

Again, is there a no-penis club or something?

 

[J1515]

This post reminds me of a story...I was rotating during 3rd year at a pretty big teaching hospital and just finished a procedure with a pretty well known vascular surgeon who everyone wanted to scrub in with (well to be honest, I just retracted). He offered to buy me and the resident (a female) lunch in the cafeteria after and we took him up on the offer. He grabbed a table and told us what to get him. He gave us $20 for everyone's food. She was insistent that SHE get the surgeon his food, I didn't give two craps. I get my stuff and go back to the table and sit down and start shooting the $h*t with the "world renowned" surgeon. We were talking about where he grew up (a town not far from me), his son playing on the high school football team, the cost of college, etc... he was actually a very down to earth guy. Mid conversation, female resident walks up to the table and puts his soup and bagel down in front of him. He says thank you and keeps talking to me. She interupts "Sir, I got you a sesame seed bagel. Let me know if that's ok, if it's not I can go back and get you another sir." He laughed and said it's fine. She sits down across from us at the table and just stares at him instead of starting to eat her sandwich. He's buttering his bagel, opening his soup, etc.. She says "Sir is your soup hot enough?" He looks at her with a wtf kind of look and replies "I guess we'll see." She continued to sit there watching him, refusing to take a bite of her food until he started eating. Meanwhile here I am half way done with my turkey sandwich. I probably had mayo all over my face but I refused to stop eating. As he lifts the bagel to take his first bite she says "Bon appetite sir"and I just had to roll my eyes.

I've never seen @sski$$ing this extreme, at least from a resident. To top it off, this girl hated students (male and female) and made that known to them. The funny thing is, this was one of the most benign surgery programs I've ever seen, so there was no need for that kind of crap.

 

[LongIslProdigy]

Salsera

As an undergrad, I volunteered in the ER of a pretty big level 1 trauma. Once in a while, the volunteer coordinator would let us observe surgeries. It was pretty embarrassing bc she basically said to go put on scrubs, go into the general OR area and "Look for a lady named Mary, tell her you are an ER volunteer and want to observe surgery"...

Anyway, I was observing (read standing at a distance trying to make as little noise and motion as possible as to not get yelled at) a procedure I don't remember exactly, but apparently whatever they were going to be doing was wrong and they would now have to do a Whipple procedure. So a female gsurg resident walks in talking as loudly as possible about how she just had to see the Whipple and naming all the procedures she has seen in the past, etc etc. She looks over at me and literally stares at me for 15 seconds without blinking until the scrub nurse was like oh that's just a volunteer. This B.... resident then says what the hell is he doing in here. The nurse was like uhh don't worry he's just watching and the resident makes a few jokes about volunteers and then stands directly between me and table throughout the whole procedure.

It took a lot for me not to say yo listen up you crazy B I'm a VOLUNTEER...Look at my ID badge, it says VOLUNTEEEEEEERRRR!

So don't worry, there are gonna be crazy male and female crazy residents wherever you go

 

[MeRLin443]

Bitches be crazy!

 

[cpants]

I think female surgery residents get a bad rap just because they are female. We hold them to a different standard. There are mean residents of both sexes, but for some reason we are surprised when a female resident is mean, and we resent it more. With a guy it's like eye rolling and "wow, typical surgeon", with a female it's "what a b*tch".

 

[Proverbs31]

Well...Im sorry yal have seen that. I think the above poster is right...When its a girl being assertive and insecure shes looked upon much differently than a guy. In any case Ive been lucky and I have met a lot of great female surg residents and I have also met the ones that either from being beat down too much, or just not being in touch with their own feminine side, they have a huge block. Its unfortunate because you do not need that persona to be respected and looked upon as an equal in this field. It "may" be harder for females to feel "equal" in this field, but regardless, it is not necessary for that behavior. Do your job well and know your stuff, and the "female-side" of it can actually help you, in my opinion. And I dont mean that in any inappropriate way.

I am going to be a surgeon... so mark my word....we will laugh and have a good time! Students should read and know their stuff but I want everyone to love surgery so I'll always be great to work with... And I'll even let you close! lol

 

[SalseraDoctora]

Well thanks you guys, you cheered me up The particular resident I was thinking of did something similar--I was watching a very cool orthopedic surgery through the OR window, and she saw me watching through the window and walked around the table and stood directly in front of me, in between me and the surgical site, 100% blocking my view. It was stunningly rude.

But anyway as I said you all cheered me right up so I feel much better now, and she has to live with herself full time which is worse than any punishment I could think of.

 

[PathMD2010]

With very few exceptions, I've lucked out and gotten really cool surgery residents (both male and female). I've had a few yell/ pimp for their own pleasure, but those have been the exception. I have NO interest in surgery. I generally dislike the OR. If I am there, I would like to have a purpose or be acknowledged. Obviously, this does not happen often (more as a fourth year though )

But the biggest differences I've noticed in female surgeons is that they are less straightforward. For example, the male surgeons will say, do x y and z, then see if there is anything else, if not, go study - at home. They would give me these instructions when I showed up; did not have to ask.

The females expected a bit more mindreading, and tended to get more annoyed if you asked them questions like "what would you like me to do" or "how can I be of best help to the team". I NEVER asked to go home or go study. But I always went home earlier with a team of males.

I am female BTW.

 

[canadia22]

Speaking as IMG, I have to say it's the same everywhere I think for women.

I find female surgeons here are a bit more sympathetic to students/residents who are female simply because they had to enter through the 7th circle of hell to get into surgery here. Women weren't even really allowed in the specialty here thirty years ago and sexual harassment and discrimination rules are non-existent in this part of the world.

That being said, I think we judge each other based on the fact that a) we suffer for being female in some way and therefore others should not get any kind of free pass, and b) nothing irritates us more than other women who we may perceive will give a bad reputation to our sex.
This is probably not fair, but it is what it is.

Totally ignore the women who are hostile. If you show you are intelligent and competent, they'll come around eventually. If you can make friends with the male surgeons, you will find them more direct in their ways and therefore easier to work with at first.

Just remember this moment when some nervous wide-eyed med. student enters YOUR OR in the future. We've all been there.

 

[VPDcurt]

But the biggest differences I've noticed in female surgeons is that they are less straightforward.

The females expected a bit more mindreading, and tended to get more annoyed if you asked them questions like "what would you like me to do" or "how can I be of best help to the team".

Ha I don't think this is specific to female surgeons (ask any guy that's ever been in any type of relationship with a female).

As far as the primary issue brought up by the OP goes, the best thing you can possibly do is ignore it and just remember that the resident flipping out or being rude for no reason is the one with issues. As a med student, you are treated poorly by these people simply because of the fact that you are a body that is present at that time; it has nothing to do with you personally - those residents don't even take the time/effort to get to know you so how could it possibly be personal? They treat others like crap because they are a crappy person, and they would do it to whomever is in your shoes at that point in time.

 

[vir0n]

To the OP, do you, as a woman, expect special treatment from woman residents?

 

[McGillGrad]

This reminds me of a story where I was an intern at the white house and I was offered lunch with Obama, along with another presidential aid. I, as you, sat down and chatted with the world renowned president and this female aid was acting all weird with Obama's fruit salad. I'm right there with you, brother. People be crazy with the butt kissing.

This post reminds me of a story...I was rotating during 3rd year at a pretty big teaching hospital and just finished a procedure with a pretty well known vascular surgeon who everyone wanted to scrub in with (well to be honest, I just retracted). He offered to buy me and the resident (a female) lunch in the cafeteria after and we took him up on the offer. He grabbed a table and told us what to get him. He gave us $20 for everyone's food. She was insistent that SHE get the surgeon his food, I didn't give two craps. I get my stuff and go back to the table and sit down and start shooting the $h*t with the "world renowned" surgeon. We were talking about where he grew up (a town not far from me), his son playing on the high school football team, the cost of college, etc... he was actually a very down to earth guy. Mid conversation, female resident walks up to the table and puts his soup and bagel down in front of him. He says thank you and keeps talking to me. She interupts "Sir, I got you a sesame seed bagel. Let me know if that's ok, if it's not I can go back and get you another sir." He laughed and said it's fine. She sits down across from us at the table and just stares at him instead of starting to eat her sandwich. He's buttering his bagel, opening his soup, etc.. She says "Sir is your soup hot enough?" He looks at her with a wtf kind of look and replies "I guess we'll see." She continued to sit there watching him, refusing to take a bite of her food until he started eating. Meanwhile here I am half way done with my turkey sandwich. I probably had mayo all over my face but I refused to stop eating. As he lifts the bagel to take his first bite she says "Bon appetite sir"and I just had to roll my eyes.

I've never seen @sski$$ing this extreme, at least from a resident. To top it off, this girl hated students (male and female) and made that known to them. The funny thing is, this was one of the most benign surgery programs I've ever seen, so there was no need for that kind of crap.

 

[werd]

i don't understand why you would think female surgeons would take it relatively easy on you; why would a female medical student expect or require "compassion" on her surgery rotation relative to the guys? surgery is tough and everyone could probably use a few more breaks than they actually get, but i think both sexes hurt about equally when working 80+ hrs a week.

 

[KeyzerSoze]

This reminds me of a story where I was an intern at the white house and I was offered lunch with Obama, along with another presidential aid. I, as you, sat down and chatted with the world renowned president and this female aid was acting all weird with Obama's fruit salad. I'm right there with you, brother. People be crazy with the butt kissing.

Just to fix your analogy, the "aide" was actually an apprentice for the presidency - she was expected to be able to do Obama's job in a few years. Let's make it Joe Biden acting all weird with Obama's fruit salad. Sadly conceivable, but inappropriate for their roles.