“Beautiful girl, you can do hard things.”
I saw that quote on my favorite Facebook group recently, called Physician Moms Group (or PMG). This is a group of women who, like all of us, are just trying to “do” life every day. Because of our integrity and intellect, we are trying to do it better than anyone else. I think that’s from a Type A personality, combined with leadership and wanting to be perfect at absolutely everything. Make sure the kids are happy, our finances are in order, our trip to Disney World is fun, the house is clean, the co-workers aren’t mad we’re on maternity leave, ensure we are the go-to specialist, the spouse feels loved, and the list goes on. But don’t let any one of these Jenga pieces fall!
As women in medicine, and especially as women in surgery, our formidable years in training teach us how to be strong and courageous. For some reason, we occasionally feel as if we should lose parts of ourselves. That maybe, we lose our soft approach to speaking with families. Or that we should be brash in the trauma bay to make people to listen to us. Maybe it is that we feel obligated to look on new interns with disgust when they say a wrong answer. Perhaps, we feel we should only dress in the frumpiest (yes, that’s a word) of clothes in order to not draw attention to anything besides our intellect. Do not ever cry! Do not wear cute shoes! Do not let “them” see you cower!
But since when did being beautiful, and being a woman, and being all the beautiful things about being a woman, become a bad thing? Since when did things like kindness, and generosity, and the ability to multitask like a boss, become perceived as less important attributes of our profession? I think if we consider the mentors that have come before us, the ones that we truly respect and admire, they are all of these attractive qualities, and they are phenomenal surgeons.
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