Take a look at the image above. It’s a typical picture of the team of residents and doctors that conduct the hospital-wide rounds in the afternoon. What’s absolutely striking to me about this image is how overwhelmingly male it is. Coming from my medical school, where the ratio of medical students is more than 50% female, this is, for me, a sight to behold…
Yeah—things are very different over here.
I wasn’t going write much on this subject, but I will admit that it is somewhat jarring to be in a completely male-dominated professional environment. To the other Cambodian residents, it is *extremely* strange to them to hear that I’ve traveled here alone—especially since I have a boyfriend back in the U.S. No matter how hard I try, it is difficult for me to steer their conversation away from my relationship status or my looks. Maybe I am over-reacting, since no one has explicitly said anything about female doctors being less capable—but it really feels like it is difficult for them to take me seriously. Not sure if it’s because of the fact that I’m female or because I’m a medical student. But in any case, the experience has definitely taken me by surprise.
Having been to a smattering of medical settings in Latin America, South America, and Asia, I had been in countries where the ratio of male to female physicians was heavily slanted towards the former. But what I saw at AHC definitely takes the cake. It took me 3 days to come across a female physician on the wards. And I soon learned why. In all of AHC, there is only one female attending physician and one female resident on the staff.
To my amusement, many of the residents and some of the attending doctors have taken to introducing me to patients as “Niet Kru sa-at, moak bpee Amerik” (Beautiful Female Doctor from America). I wonder what American patients would think if their physician was given that sort of introduction…
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