The Proper Role of Women Doctors

I was a medical student at NYU shortly after New York became the first state to legalize abortions in 1970. The big change, from a student’s point of view, was that deliveries at Bellevue plummeted. To ensure that we received training in obstetrics, NYU began sending us to Booth Memorial Hospital in Queens which served a middle-class population who wanted children. It was much nicer than Bellevue and the staff obstetricians were congenial.

During NYU’s obstetric rotation, students divided up into teams; mine consisted of me and two women.

One evening after midnight at Booth Memorial we were waiting for a delivery when the legendary Doctor Epstein arrived, an elderly obstetrician with an immense practice who had graduated medical school in 1928. With time on his hands, he gave my companions career advice.

They shouldn’t go into surgery, he warned. Surgeons must stand for hours. Being prone to varicose veins, women cannot tolerate that. He suggested anesthesiology because it’s so boring. Women are better at boring stuff. Since women have a natural love of children they couldn’t go wrong with pediatrics or child psychiatry.

This being a prefeminist era, the women were more amused than offended. But both went into pediatrics.       

An Odd Anecdote

Long ago when I was a medical student, a woman came to our gynecology clinic to have an IUD removed.

Five years earlier, when abortions were still illegal, she had had an abortion. For some reason, the woman believed that IUDs were also illegal. The abortionist said that he would insert an IUD for an extra $180, and she agreed.

When the resident looked inside, he didn’t see a string hanging out of her cervix. All IUDs have this string, so they can be easily removed. He ordered an X-ray. It showed a bobby pin.

The resident removed it in the operating room, rusty but intact. It had served her well for five years.