It’s Not a Women’s Problem – It’s a Systemic One
For years, I wondered if the professional challenges I faced were due to my own shortcomings, and I spent a lot of time and energy working to improve myself. It wasn’t until I started talking to other women in medicine that I realized these barriers were not unique to me, and many were not obstacles I could overcome alone.
The obstacles facing women are structural and systemic in nature. They infect everything from the set up of our tenure and promotion committees, to compensation decisions and valuation of services and contributions, to the system as a whole, to the processes (or lack thereof) by which healthcare professionals are sponsored (nearly 40% of our industry’s panels are comprised entirely of men).
