Women Share Visions of Equality: UA Medical Students Empower Their Community on International Women’s Day
Co-written by Afeefah R. Rashid and Britt D.K. Gratreak
Published on Medium
A community response to our interactive display about gender bias featured many shared themes and ideas among anonymous participants at the University of Arizona College of Medicine — Tucson.
We wanted to create an interactive display that would reflect a supportive space for students, in addition to informing allies who want to help, but may not know how to.
To celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, 2020, an interactive board was planted in the lobby of the University of Arizona College of Medicine — Tucson where it stood for one week. A prompt on the board posed the question, “How can each of us challenge gender stereotypes?”
One sticky note answered, “LOUDLY.”
Solidarity took the form of a neighboring sticky note added later in the week that read, “Speak out Speak up!! :)”
Local chapters of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) and the Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) teamed up this month to create an interactive board to celebrate International Women’s Day at the UACOM-T. Passersby were provided with a pen and prompts to answer by placing sticky notes on the board. The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day was #EachforEqual, a celebration of women’s achievements and promotion of gender equality.The UA-COMT branches of the Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) and American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) worked together to create an interactive board for the community to reflect on the impact of gender bias.
The UA College of Medicine — Tucson branches of the Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) and American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) created an interactive board for the community to reflect on gender bias.
As branch presidents of AMWA and AWS, our shared vision was to present a community outlet for ideas about how to promote gender balance in medicine and higher education while sparking meaningful discussion among medical students, staff, and faculty. We wanted to create an interactive display that would reflect a supportive space for students, in addition to informing allies who want to help, but may not know how to. Leadership teams last year created a similar interactive celebration of International Women’s Day. We hope this tradition carries for many years to follow.
Prompts on our interactive board included:
What does a gender-balanced world mean to you?
How can each of us challenge gender stereotypes?
How do you promote a gender-balanced world?
Share stories about inspiring women in your lives!
We wanted these questions to create a thought process in its readers and participants about what they do, and what they wanted the community to do, to confront biases that they witness or experience. We also created a parallel space to celebrate inspiring women at the UA College of Medicine — Tucson to amplify their achievements in our community. Notes that envisioned a gender-balanced world shared a common theme of reducing the pay gap that exists for women; indeed, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), female physicians make 76 cents for every dollar earned by male physicians.
To create space for students early in their careers to safely share their experiences and create allies, AMWA and AWS chapters have actively organized pre-health panels for undergraduates, shadowing opportunities for medical students, networking events between students and physicians of varying specialties, and events about women’s health disparities. Nationally, AMWA leaders presented the impact of restrictive legislation on medical education and women’s health in Arizona at the 105th AMWA Annual Meeting on March 26–29. Leaders have also worked with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) to invite speakers from TIME’S UP Healthcare to the UA College of Medicine — Tucson.
The International Women’s Day board created a space to amplify inspiring women at the UA College of Medicine — Tucson.
Gender bias has the potential to harm not only the individuals it targets, but fields at large; incredible contributions by our brightest scientists can be dismissed and overlooked on the mere bias against their gender. Thankfully, organizations such as the AAMC lead the way by presenting public calls to action.
Gender inequality can be subtle and hard to detect at times, such as the implicit tendency to refer to female physicians and leaders by their first name instead of their title, even while introducing them as a speaker at conferences or grand rounds. Impacts of gender bias in medicine can also be so large that they are objectively measurable by studying medical student experiences and adverse patient outcomes. A recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine analyzed responses from graduation surveys and found that a significantly higher proportion of female and LGB medical students reported experiencing mistreatment during their education, including public humiliation that may negatively impact their career, compared to male students. A study of surgical residents published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that women experienced more mistreatment and more burnout than male colleagues and that mistreatment was associated with burnout and suicidal thoughts.
It is not only medical students, residents, and physicians that are impacted by gender bias; a systematic review in BMC Medical Ethics reveals levels of implicit bias exhibited by healthcare professionals are similar to those of the wider population and the lack of impartial treatment of patients influences diagnosis, treatment decisions, and care. For patients experiencing heart attack symptoms, gender bias presents in longer emergency room waiting times and significantly higher mortality rates for women.
Unfortunately, this bias is also entrenched in academic medicine, a field that is relied upon to inform and drive essential changes to medical education and patient care. A study on gender discrimination and sexual harassment in academic medicine published 20 years ago found that half of female faculty across the U.S. experienced some form of sexual harassment and those that experienced negative gender bias were just as productive as male colleagues but had lower career satisfaction.
In conjunction with prompts and community answers, our board included resources from the UA Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) that details how to avoid gender bias while writing letters of recommendation and statistics about how women tend to contribute a larger percentage of their time to faculty service roles within academia despite being less likely to be asked to lead a department than male peers. We also featured comics about gender bias and inspirational quotes and graphics honoring inspiring women in science including Katherine Johnson and Mae Jemison.
Many notes written on our board seemed to resonate with each other, amplify support for women and the LGBTQIA+ community, and, importantly, openly display to our community that we take care of each other.
Although it was a simple act, our board facilitated the acknowledgement of these gender disparities faced within the field of medicine and in our everyday lives. It stood as a visible gesture to our community that we are working together to guide necessary changes that promote equality through individual and community levels of action. As Women’s History Month comes to a close, we hope that by increasing awareness of these issues and celebrating each other, we promote behavior and open dialogue that creates a more supportive environment and helps build an empowered future.
This article was co-written by Afeefah R. Rashid and Britt D.K. Gratreak who are first-year M.D. students at the University of Arizona College of Medicine — Tucson. Afeefah is a co-president of the Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) and Britt is the president of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) branch at the UA College of Medicine — Tucson.
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