Blog Post #4 2/11/09

For the blog about gender and gender specific roles, I opted to do a piece about women roles in anesthesiology, one of my favorite medical fields. In the online article I read, it talked about why there is such a lower amount of women enrolled in the field of anesthesiology and the factors that contribute to it. Sure, it is fairly obvious that women participation has been low in the mid-late 1900's but now in the 21st century there is an increasing boom and in many other aspects, women enrollment is higher than male in some medical fields. On the other hand, the article hits home when it shows that the field of anesthesiology is frighteningly male, which means that women might feel nervous with not so many women in the field. Another thing I agree with is when it talks about the tedious work hours of an anesthetist. Few people understand how many years of school it takes just to get to be an anesthetist, not alone how many hours and years they have to work without pay in residency. Typically anesthetists work an upwards of a 5o hour week and, they get crazy hours of the day too which means that you don't really get to choose when you want to work. Women have families and or children to look after so the work hours might also be another negative factor. I think that the American Board of Anesthesiology should implement part-time training during residency because it could attract more potential anesthetists of all genders and, moreover, it proved to work in other fields. Furthermore, I agree when the anesthetists of the article write, "some of the factors that may influence women on the choice of anesthesiology as a career can be addressed  by considering flexible scheduling options, educating students about the Physician-Patient Relationship in Anesthesiology,  provide more women role  models/instructors, and to anticipate issues important to women in selecting anesthesiology."  One last point that I think is important is sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Since there are more males, it is probable that they would harass women more often than not. If I were in the place of a women anesthesiologist, I would not tolerate the discrimination and would advocate for awareness of the problems facing women today not only in anesthetics, but in the general medical world.