Every year, 3rd February is celebrated as National Physicians Day in the United States of America. On this day, in 1821, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was born. She was the first woman to obtain a medical degree in the United States in the year of 1849. She championed the participation of women in the medical profession and ultimately opened her own medical college for women.
After seeing and appreciating the success of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, millions of female doctors followed in her footsteps. The idea of celebrating 3rd February as National Physicians Day was given by Dr. Hala Sabry, an osteopathic emergency physician and founder of the Physician Moms Group (PMG). She petitioned for the holiday to mark the accomplishments of Dr. Blackwell, as well as those hard-won advances and countless innovations that women in medicine have seen since.
National Physicians Day strives to bring improvements to the workplace for the growing number of women physicians entering the field of medicine. While the number of women doctors gradually increased in the last two decades, 2016 statistics show that only 35% of physicians in U.S. are women. The lack of women in medical leadership suggests we still have a way to go before we reach gender parity at the hospital. So does the pay gap. And we need to stop referring to maternity leave as a “vacation.”
A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that female doctors were simply superior at treating patients in the studied age group than their male counterparts were, even after every practitioner or patient factor was considered, and that if male doctors could somehow take a leaf out of their female peers’ medical book, upwards of 32,000 deaths could be avoided each year.
To explain this vital discrepancy, researchers pointed to women physicians’ greater tendency to provide preventive care and counseling, and to “have a more patient- centered communication style, be more encouraging and reassuring, and have longer visits than male physicians.”
National Physicians Day supports women in the medical field. By building young women’s confidence in their future potential, we can cultivate a society that compensates and rewards women and men based on their competence, regardless of their gender.
