What it means to be a woman in medicine today

At first glance, medical school can be simplified to “drinking from a fire hose.” Endless Anki cards, color-coded notes, iPads filled with diagrams.

Cramming and regurgitation, funny acronyms and mnemonics. Obscure conditions. Buzzwords.

It feels like memorizing a ton of conditions and running through the routine steps of diagnosis, treatment, management, clinical investigations, and so on — until you can recite them in your sleep.

You’re buried in biochemical pathways, pathophysiology, and pharmacology, later replaced by best-practice guidelines and clinical decision flowcharts.

Our self-worth often hinges on exam scores, or how well we manage to stand out to whoever is teaching us — or how quickly we can build our CV for the next step in this never-ending journey.

We romanticize our way through the process, convincing ourselves that if we can just get to the next step, we’ll finally be a “woman in medicine.”

Most of us entered medicine with a spark — a desire to serve, to heal, to make meaning out of suffering. As individuals we have made great sacrifice for this path while also holding in our hands the privilege it is to take care of others in this way. Our families too have sacrificed for this dream we have held so tightly for most of our lives.

Then you get into real medicine — and it’s nothing like textbook learning. It’s art, intuition, and logic.

It’s evidence-based science, but also experience-based instinct.

It’s failure, some days.

We imagined helping others, not racing against broken systems.

There are so many different types of physicians.

Some are teachers.
Some are quiet cheerleaders.
Some are good listeners.
Some are not.

How can we feel like we are ever so different, yet ever so the same?

There’s space for many kinds of strengths — and room for weakness. That, I am still learning.

I find myself drawn to so many women doctors — not just for their clinical skills, but for the way they carry themselves through life: with grace, simplicity, fire, intelligence, command, and softness.

I look for mentorship from women who “have it all,” and hope to become that kind of mentor someday.

But the myth of “having it all” often feels like the root of anxiety and sleepless nights in this life we’ve chosen.

Can I free myself from that?

We as women are hard on ourselves.

The world often is, too.

Some environments still make it harder for women to be fully seen and heard. We are still asked first if we’re the nurse in the room.

If a male doctor is in the room, he’s more likely to be addressed first.

And yet — we keep showing up.

We show up while pregnant.
We show up after being up all night with a newborn.
We show up even when our own personal lives feel like they’re unraveling — the loss of a parent, or a struggling friend.

Some of us are mothers.

Some of us are not.

But all of us — at some point — face the loneliness of this path.

The moments no one sees. The quiet ache of carrying so much and still feeling like it’s never quite enough.

We carry the weight of taking care of others — while also trying to take care of ourselves. We hold what sometimes feels like an endless reserve of empathy — but we are human, too.

We cry and we laugh late at night on call.

We feel deeply and sometimes not at all for survival. We hit our limits — and we push our limits.

Sometimes, we don’t love the culture we work in.

Sometimes egos and narcissism dominate spaces that should be about healing.

Some chase titles.
Some choose prestige.
Some do it because they are the best people I know — the kind of people I want taking care of my loved ones.

Who are we really to judge?

And sometimes, we are simply unsure — wondering if we are enough.

When we see injustice in the world, we can grow jaded. But somehow, we always return to our softness.

To the core of why we chose this path.

There are days when the documenting, the politics, the insurance barriers, the endless clicking of orders makes us question it all.

And then there are days when the hours disappear — because the only thing that matters is the patient in front of us, or the problem waiting to be solved.

We are wells of knowledge.

And yet, many of us constantly feel like we don’t know enough.

We keep learning. We stay aware of the limits of our knowledge — and of our field. We are drawn to a profession shaped by uncertainty, always evolving.

Some of us may be perfectionists.

We may be difficult partners at times.

We may feel empty on certain days — like what we give our lives to doesn’t always give back.

Our to-do lists are never-ending.

And we know, too, that not all women experience medicine the same way.

Race, culture, identity — and the intersections we carry — shape how we are seen, heard, and treated, and how we survive this work.

But we come back — not because we’re unbreakable.

Not because we must.

We come back because we love fiercely.

And that love is its own kind of power.

It changes the room.

It changes the culture.