Faye Reiff-Pasarew, MD, a 34-year-old hospitalist at New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System, recently penned an article in The Washington Post detailing the delicate balance between the need to maintain her authority, assertiveness and confidence and the need to overcome gender stereotyping from patients that can impede to care.
“Though I’m 34 and have been an attending physician for several years, after nearly a decade of medical training, patients routinely ask how old I am, tell me I look like ‘a baby’ and, most infuriating, call me ‘cute’ or ‘adorable,’ as if I were a preschooler playing dress-up,” Dr. Reiff-Pasarew wrote. “A few have even asked to be seen by a ‘real’ doctor instead of a ‘girl.’ It’s an experience that’s not unique to me but familiar to many other young women in the profession. And while young men may similarly struggle to prove themselves as doctors, they’re never called ‘sweetie.'”
Providing the best quality care possible to patients who project these stereotypes onto young female physicians is not merely a matter of growing thicker skin. Dr. Reiff-Pasarew — and all physicians — needs her patients to trust her and feel confident in her hands. When there is an emergency, there is no time to spare.
“I don’t have the luxury of time during multiple office visits to earn their trust. Any delay can be dangerous. We can’t afford — nor can our patients — for our recommendations to be taken with a grain of salt,” she wrote.
Read Dr. Reiff-Pasarew’s full article here.
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Redefining the hospital-physician relationship: How integration is evolving for success under value-based reimbursement
Quotes from the Front Lines: ‘Business school, not med school, taught me how to have difficult conversations’
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