Writer background: All authors–Adrienne N. Bruce (School of Medicine, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA), Alexis Battista (MedStar Health Research Institute, Hyattsville, MD, USA), Michael W. Plankey (School of Medicine, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA), Lynt B. Johnson (Division of General Surgery Department of Surgery, MedStar Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA), and M. Blair Marshall (Division of Thoracic Surgery Department of Surgery, MedStar Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA) are directly related to health care and medical education.
Writer’s angle: The researchers aimed to prove an arguable claim that women-surgeons are discriminated in surgical training and working environment. There is only one side of the problem (Bruce, Battista, Plankey, Johnson, & Marshall, 2015).
Part 1: The One-Sentence Summary
According to the research-based on 334 responses of medical students, the overwhelming majority of future women-surgeons experience gender-based discrimination in surgical training, which discourages them from working in the chosen field (Bruce et al., 2015).
Part 2: The One-Paragraph Summary
The article states that women, who now constitute 15% of all surgeons, constantly experience gender discrimination, which makes many of them quit the profession. The researchers conducted a survey measuring women’s perception of this phenomenon in health care educational institutions as well as in surgical practice. It was found out that 87% of all participants were discriminated in medical schools, 88% in residence, whereas 91% claimed that they had to experience a prejudiced attitude in practice. The most unexpected was that discrimination came not only from men but also from women (40% of the female staff made humiliating remarks towards medical students when they did practical training) (Bruce et al., 2015).
The Multiple-Paragraph Summary
It has been estimated by the authors of the article that approximately the same number of male and female students graduate from medical schools every year. Yet, women continue to be heavily underrepresented in the surgical field and comprise no more than 15% of all practicing surgeons, which is one of the lowest percentages across all medical professions (Bruce et al., 2015).
It was assumed before that women themselves tended to avoid surgery as they feared the wrong perception. Yet, these fears proved to be grounded inexperience. Female students continue to complain about gender discrimination and humiliation that are still persistent in the surgeon community. For future surgeons, their first practical experience in hospital settings is decisive as it allows them to understand whether they are going to pursue this career after graduation. This implies that being mistreated they are likely to change their mind about the choice of profession. These results obtained by the researchers go against the common delusion that family preferences and lifestyle issues are the major deterring factors for women-surgeons. Women are much less likely than men to cite family influence as a decisive factor in their choice of profession (Bruce et al., 2015).
The conducted study has proven that gender discrimination is not a myth; on the contrary, women’s responses demonstrated that health care educational institutions as well as in surgical practice, discrimination takes place in 87-91% cases. Furthermore, 40% of it comes from female health specialists, which was rather unexpected (Bruce et al., 2015).
My Reaction
I agree with the authors of the research that discrimination on the gender basis is a highly pressing issue in medical settings, which prevents a lot of promising students from entering the profession. The article is particularly persuasive since it provides statistics showing the number of surgeon students graduating every year as compared to the number of those who work as surgeons after that. A huge gap between those numbers makes the reader understand that there must be serious reasons women abandon the profession they chose. When we start looking for hidden causes, we end up concluding that the major of them is discrimination, which the majority of women cannot tolerate.
I believe that the publication meets the needs of the intended audience only to a certain extent. The problem is that the authors do not give any clear-cut recommendations on how to prevent or avoid gender discrimination. Yet, most female readers are likely to expect some practical pieces of advice.
Nevertheless, the authors seem rather reliable as all of them are closely linked to medical practice and research. There are no particular examples of discrimination in the paper as all responses of student surgeons were summed up to make conclusions. The information seems to be persuasive since it is based on a big number of independent answers.
The authors sound rather neutral, which means that there is no actual appeal to emotions found in the article. Still, they express the hope that future generations of surgeons will be able to promote equality throughout their education and career eliminating all kinds of gender prejudice.
The document is divided into standard subsections and uses tables for the better and more demonstrative organization of the data. This is rather effective as it allows seeing the holistic picture of the situation more clearly.
Reference
Bruce, A. N., Battista, A., Plankey, M. W., Johnson, L. B., & Marshall, M. B. (2015). Perceptions of gender-based discrimination during surgical training and practice. Medical Education Online, 20(1), 1-11.