It’s not often the sight of a chubby woman makes me glad, but it very much did this morning, because the young person in question is working as a very competent trainee orthopaedic surgeon in the trauma theatre today. Orthopaedics is a specialty very much dominated by a certain type. Our orthopods here are all out of the same big tall white male cookie cutter. I hasten to add, they are all perfectly lovely, even though I have great difficulty telling them apart. Much as I enjoy working with them, I hope it’s not wrong to say I think the advent of female trainees is definitely a step in the right direction.
I don’t think anyone will suffer if surgical training becomes more humane – traditionally, you had to be willing to sacrifice everything to be a surgeon. I remember one urology trainee telling me years ago, the high divorce rate amongst surgeons is a reason not to get married, not a reason not to become a surgeon. I appreciate the importance of putting the hours in to get your skills up, but that’s not all you need to be a good doctor. I’d prefer anyone operating on me to be a well rounded human being and be able to take a holistic approach. Not to mention, I’d like them to be well rested.
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Full disclosure: to be fair, it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to be able to tell my future husband from his (similarly tall and blond) flatmate, so it’s possible there’s some facial agnosia on my part that is complicating the issue.