National Women’s Health Day, India Part 2

 


What it means to be a woman physician today!

I have always felt a connection with Dr Anandibai Joshi for multiple reasons. She was a Joshi daughter like me( though she was also Joshi by marriage). She grew up in Kalyan which is barely 60 km( roughly 35 miles) from Khopoli, my hometown. She came to the United States to study medicine at a young age of 19. I came in my mid 20s. Her husband was the force behind her education while my parents filled that role in my case. We were born in the year 65, 100 years apart! 

In the 100 years between and thereafter, many things have changed and many haven’t.

Many more girls are applying and entering into medical colleges than a hundred years back. Society has become more accepting of women in medicine. Leaving India to pursue higher education abroad also has become more frequent and acceptable in our society.Both parents being physicians themselves, we(my sister and me) were always encouraged to pursue the profession. No distinction was made between us and our brother. Yet I know firsthand of girls from my extended family and other families who were quite capable yet not given the opportunity to pursue this career for several reasons.

The society largely remains patriarchal. Spending for a girl’s medical education vs for her wedding becomes a matter of conflict and debate in several families. Getting her married early instead of seeing her “aging” with the long medical education is still a consideration in some households. Her male siblings often get the priority towards the limited family resources for higher education. Hesitation to send a daughter away from home at an early age for higher education comes in the way. She will have difficulty adjusting into her married family if she is too educated and financially independent is also sometimes a factor to discourage her from becoming a doctor. There are other shameful evils propagated in some sections of society through centuries old traditions. One of my close friends at medical college belonged to a community where it was customary for the girl’s family to pay the groom huge sums of money. They do not consider it dowry. They say it is matrilineal inheritance! The amount increased in proportion to the level of education. Education of the groom that is ! Her level of education did not matter! I also know families that insisted on a bride with a medical degree and then forced her to quit her career and take care of the home. It elevated their profile! 

There are personal sacrifices every woman who enters medical school makes. There are also sacrifices that the family of every working woman doctor makes. I have seen this from different angles since an early age. I grew up with a mother who was nearly absent from my life because of the demands of her profession. I went through a phase of resenting this absence, then thought of avoiding entering such profession. Next, tried to avoid marriage altogether after I had entered the profession. As life progressed and I started my own family, I began understanding firsthand the difficulties of balancing family and the profession. I started making personal adjustments in my career so the kids don’t go through what I did. And finally, after much internal struggle and grief, succeeded in making truce with my mother. The internal struggle and emotional turmoil can never be measured. Nevertheless it was very much real.

In the course of time I also raised a daughter who chose to follow in my footsteps . I have seen the amount of effort she had to and continues to put to get where she is today. I also see how difficult it is for her and several of her co-residents to find a life partner who can understand the time commitment required of their profession. Young men don’t want to date a woman who can’t be available to spend quality time with them on weekends, if not weekdays. A medical student or resident does not have that luxury. They are not bound by normal work hours. Often they forget there is a diurnal rhythm to the body and brain. They have left behind their hobbies and interests when they entered the world of medicine. They have glided through their twenties and entered their thirties while in a dark tunnel where all they could see or had was a tall pile of books and research articles, exam after exam to clear, interview after interview to prepare for and series of anxious periods waiting for acceptances or match results for medical schools, residency or fellowship. Occasionally if they lift up their heads and look in the mirror the increased greying of the hairline or the excess hair on the floor brings pain to their hearts. They turn a blind eye temporarily and keep going forward, reminded again that this is the life they wanted and chose for themselves. This is not a figment of my imagination. I have seen this from close quarters.

Biologically, each month we have to deal with the physical and emotional mess from menstruation. It takes extra work to regenerate and make up for the lost blood. There is also the biological burden of pregnancy and delivery on us. Socially, we are thrust with the primary responsibility to raise the kids until they are old enough to fend for themselves. Cook for them, feed them, attend to their illness, instill values and give them a foundation of the culture, all this is disproportionately more on our plate. Just because you earned a medical degree and work in a high stress environment you are not absolved of these responsibilities. Many men find it normal to return from work, expect tea to be ready for them and then they are free to turn on the TV and watch news or a game. The woman more often than not comes home after an equally long day at work and immediately gets to fixing dinner and then cleaning up the kitchen before calling it a day. I often find myself multitasking, even in between work,  juggling appointments for my mother or communicating with the gardener about fixing a broken sprinkler or such things. Some, but not all, male counterparts are understanding of our physiological and physical challenges and rise to share the responsibilities equally with us. 

On the professional front, even today, even in a western society, a woman doctor has to assert herself for being a doctor. Not infrequently patients and families refer to us as “nurse” or “miss” or “sister “. Twenty-something year olds ask us “are you the doctor? How long you’ve been a doctor?” Even today when a woman applies for a higher rank in the professional setting the question is raised about her making time for the job while she is raising young kids! Men colleagues may have kids of same age but they are never questioned about the child care conflicting with their career!

Despite all the disparities we women keep going strong on all fronts, often exceeding in our performance compared to our male counterparts. It is the faith, the inspiration and encouragement from our teachers, our parents, our well wishers and the women like Anandibai Joshi who paved the path for us that keeps us going. 
And in the midst of all the struggle and trying times we keep up the search for ourselves! We try to find the person we were before the white coat and stethoscope around our neck became our identity. In the midst of these battles we try to nurture and celebrate our womanhood. So much remains to be done to make things better. At the same time, there is so much to be proud of, thinking of what we have overcome and accomplished along the way. Every Indian woman doctor, wherever on earth she lives, while remembering the life of Anandibai Joshi must not just feel the gratitude but carry the torch forward to carry on the work she envisioned but didn’t get a chance to complete. She must live on through us and beyond us for centuries to come.

Saree is a printed mulberry silk that my parents had picked for me over 15 years back. Particularly my father had picked this from a pile that was shown to them. Todays post I dedicate to them for their insistence to make their daughters independent in every way. They would not have it any other way. Today I can speak on behalf of my sister that whatever we have achieved is because of the generosity and vision of these two kind souls more than anyone else. May all aspiring girls get such parents who go above and beyond their duty to make their dreams come true.

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