National Women Physicians Day 2020

Three years ago, someone started a tradition called “National Women Physicians Day”.

The first physician who pops into my mind when I think about women physicians is my mom, of course. I’ve written about her on this day before and on Doctors’ Day, but I don’t really need a day to celebrate her.

I celebrate my mom every day by honoring her example.

My mom retired from being a Family Medicine doctor when I was starting my second year of medical school. I was able to shadow her that summer as part of my pre-clinical rotations. But I didn’t have to shadow my mom as a medical student to know that she made a difference in the lives of her patients.

I heard about it every day. As a physician, you take work home with you. We care deeply about our patients and the things that affect them affect us as well. I could hear it in the way my mom cared about her patients. In the way she sometimes needed time to herself. And, of course, I heard about her wonderful care via her nurses, her co-workers, and her patients themselves.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t go into details (because of HIPAA), but if I didn’t talk about my worry and frustrations with my husband, then I’d go crazy. I think about my patients when I go home. And when I think about someone, I usually give them a call to check in on them.

I’ve read recently about a case of litigation against a doctor—a case that ended up being so stressful that that doctor took his own life. I’m not sure if someone outside of the medical profession (or outside the family of a medical professional) would understand how much we put into being a physician. It’s not just about the medicine side of things, but the ART of medicine, not only the science. The ART of medicine is a hard thing to teach. I’ve learned more about the ART of medicine through my my mother’s compassion for the human spirit, through the middle of the night connections that my ICU attendings made with their patient families, through allowing someone to die with dignity, through the unfailing advocacy of many of the parents of of my patients.

When I say that I honor my mom’s legacy and example, I mean that I try hard to see things from my patient’s point of view. Or through their parents’ point of view. How do I want my child treated? Respectfully and with compassion.

It’s a hard thing to do with the many time crunches put upon us. Medicine has changed since the time when my parents were practicing, and it’s continuing to change. It’s become a business, a service industry, and some people expect it all to be about customer service.

I’m still trying hard to make it about the patient, just like my mom did.

So, on National Women Physicians Day, I always honor my mom. Because though I sometimes may fail, I always try hard to make a difference in the lives of my patients.

And that’s something that you can’t rate on a survey. ;D

xo

[Side note: The pictures up top are of my mom with her colleagues when the clinic they were working in closed down. She transferred to another clinic and apparently I wrote her an encouraging note that she kept. See below. I love that she kept it (my mom is known for throwing things out) and that since I wrote it on her calendar, I realized that in the pictures, my mom is the same age that I am now! Posted with her permission.

Previous posts about National Women Physicians Day can be found here, here, and here.]

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Tell me something positive about one of your physicians. What makes you stay with them? Let me know in the comments.