“It’s a beautiful day to save lives”, a line from the show Grey’s anatomy which took a million girls by storm and thrust them into a surgical career to follow into the footsteps of Meredith Grey – someone I would learn off much later, connect to and sometimes be appalled at because of the hot mess she is. I had no clue, not a wee bit that looking at women in surgery and being a woman in surgery required such nerves of steel.
It’s a beautiful day today to pen down a post on what my almost inconsequential baby steps into the field of surgery has meant to me. From watching my mother run back and forth from home to hospital at any time of the day gulping an entire roti in bites of four – to me repeating the same pattern and barely managing to see my beautiful 2bhk that I maintain with sky high rent while working 90hr weeks and an NBM more than my patients.
The world has changed most definitely – there are more women in surgery – you have no idea how heartwarming it is to see when someone who said they are confused whether they should take Pediatrics or Pathology (because that’s what expected of ideal female doctors to get into and build family in a nurturing role that allows them to balance home with) instead of taking surgery, finally taking the surgical branch. There are more women in Super speciality surgical branches even though a female pursuing an Mch degree is considered as ‘too ambitious’, ‘unsuitable for family life’, ‘won’t manage home’ and deemed unfit in the marriage market because the ones who make the demands are like fiefs sitting in a bazaar bartering women by the degrees and wanting the moolah alongside the demands of “Will you step back when it’s time to plan a family?” I had met a gastrosurgeon once who told how he led a busy life with 16-18 hours surgery and was unable to contribute to home yet he expects the surgeon wife in a similarly demanding field to be okay with him coming and going as he pleased and taking a step back when needed. He proudly declared how his friends had earlier told that a surgeon wife would be unsuitable. It was almost funny, yet ironic. I have always watched how my father despite not being from the medical field has taken an almost indulgent share in my mother’s flourishing obstetric career braving her late night labour calls and OTs by dropping her back and forth from hospital sometimes sleeping in the parking lot. Never making demands of what a ‘conventional wife’ must do. Thinking of new ways to see her grow in her career and I have realized for every brave woman in surgery there also a braver partner who supports her through it. The ones who remind them that they got their back through it all. May we all be blessed with them.
Being a woman in surgery is knowing all this and also battling the learning curve alongside. While your biological clocks keep ticking you are their struggling in the OT under the lights. Your bodies through period flow and cramps standing through 12 hour OTs performing to its best – because in surgery neither there are excuses nor sorry. You only get one chance and you have to grab it. For women these chances are also quite rare to come by.
I did my residency in one of the prestigious colleges in Karnataka – yet there was a whispered adage in the department – your life goes smooth in this department if you are a guy. The guys clinked glasses with the professors in private and in the classes gave mind numbingly stupid answers only to get away with it and be performing a procedure alone in OT the next day. The beauty of it was your self doubt would keep increasing exponentially while they muddled in their ignorant bliss to glory. With surgical learning curve being so steep, you were left at the very negative odds of it. There are times you wonder if you should have taken a more female friendly branch – Dermatology or perhaps OBG. Yet somehow my uncle’s face during his last days of battle with cancer kept haunting my brain and I wondered what is this field which despite having a family of doctors we could never decipher or beat. Thus began my journey into it.
Four years down the lane do I regret being in a branch that literally sucks my soul and makes me doubt myself everyday as I begin from the scratch – learning, unlearning and learning again? Yes, most definitely yes. There are times I feel I could have taken a medical branch and just been at it. Sometimes even the most ridiculously sweet patients, stories and gooey mush my heart is in with the countless number of compliments, blessings that my patients give me falls short when a male surgeon misbehaves with me or tells me how girls are not fit for this – when the male locker room talk in operative procedures makes me feel like running away from the crassness of it all. When you do not get the same respect as a male surgeon by the nursing staff who treat them with more gravitas. Where your talent and skills are kept to the side and you can be just reduced to someone hit on or ogled at. When sheer exhaustion takes over with the balance of personal and professional. When yet another family friend – a doctor couple – tells my parents that they made a mistake letting me get into Head and neck surgery because guys do not see me as wife material. When yet another duty, yet another long shift and yet another exhausting day at work doesn’t leave me with the headspace to talk to my loved ones and suspect if everyone is actually true? That as a girl I might have forayed into something that’s professionally exciting yet personally draining. Maybe it’s time to take a step back?
But again I hold the scalpel and get the shivers like I did the first time – the happy ones – and as I slice open a neck I realize I am doing something that none of my forefathers, family or friends have dreamt of doing. I get to see the things that no one in my vicinity has done and tell a silent prayer to that little girl who dreamt big dreams and is getting to live it. I do my OPDs and rounds and ward rounds and know that I bring an empathy that most men can’t and that’s what sets me apart every time a patient smiles and remembers my face even after days. I get handed a oddly sketched drawing by a patient’s child who wanted to give me a chocolate or get a text from patient I discharged home happily a week back, “thank you happy women’s day for all that you do so exceptionally” or get hugged randomly by a patient or an ajji through a difficult diagnosis and know that some way I have impacted and made someone’s life better. When I am in my night shifts or in between OTs and have someone to ask me if I ate or slept through my shifts and bear my mood swings through it all and I wonder – being a woman in surgery is not a big deal once you have the right support system for it? Having parents who nitpicked yet let me grow academically/ professionally to the fullest which many, many, many girls step back with the lack of fills my heart with plain gratitude. No one will ever understand the sacrifices it takes to be family or a friend to a female surgeon – yet people do, and I am grateful for it. I am grateful for all the mess I am and every person who takes the pain and pleasure in unraveling it. Being in an unconventional path might have taken its toll, but in the end I have been left only with the realest ones.
As women we have held ourselves back for far too long by confining ourselves to the purview of what can be done or cannot to a point we don’t even know what we want anymore. We do not take credit, we do not make our presence known, neither our sacrifices or the work or love we put into the tiniest of things in our day to day lives. Here is to speaking up more, letting our presence known and most importantly letting ourselves be okay with acknowledging it.
So, here’s to all the brave women and braver #womeninsurgery – may we know them, may we be them and may we raise them. To having the magic of scalpel in our hands.
Happy Women’s Day ! 🙂
Love,
P.
PS:
PPS:
symphonyofdesires.wordpress.com 