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[Editor's Note: This guest post is contributed by a regular reader, not a physician, who wishes to remain anonymous (to you, not me) but describes herself at the beginning of the post. We have no financial relationship.]
This post is inspired by An Invitation to Contribute blog post from February, which, in summary, criticized WCI for not being very diverse or understanding of anyone who was different than his situation. I couldn’t disagree more: I’m not a white male ER doc living in Utah, yet his blog has inspired and encouraged me, as well as many others, to be much better owners of our financial present and future. What that book review, as well as Dr. Mom’s guest post, Not All Who Wander Are Lost, (part 2) illustrate is the fact that everyone will get what they need out of the blog and make it applicable to their specific situation. So, inspired by the constant readings of the WCI blog and the two guest posts above, I wanted to write a guest post related to becoming financially savvy and successful from a woman’s point of view (and not just physicians – but all along the STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Math] professions).
Although, I would like to remain anonymous, here are some general stats – I’m a woman, wife, mother, and a CPA (but not in financial planning or taxes – I work in audit). Also, this is not a post on feminism, gender pay inequality, or any other such politically charged topics. This is simply my thoughts on the facts that are our financial surroundings (or what I have observed specifically). I realize, everyone’s story is different, but hopefully this will resonate with a lot of successful women out there.
What Financial Advisors Think Of Women
Mrs. WCI on the summit of Mt. Hood shortly after dawn
As a CPA, I get a number of professional newsletters, one of which is specifically written by and for financial planners. In addition to ACA and tax extensions, one of the continuous themes I’m seeing is catering to female clients. The topics range from catering to widows and divorcees to women living longer. In November 2014, the newsletter linked me to the BMO Private Bank in Chicago national study based on 1,200 people, roughly half of which are women. Although the study did identify 85% of women manage or participate in family finances, it also found that 60-70% of women don’t have wills, living wills or powers of attorney. But the most alarming finding is 28% of women think they would be broke or homeless if they lost/divorced their husband. Sallie Krawcheck, Chairwoman of the Ellevate network for professional women, spoke at the Investment Managers Consultants Association in January 2015 about women representing an un-tapped gold mine for the financial advisors industry. Sallie based her talk on these stats:
“What if I told you there’s a potential client base that holds a majority of wealth in this country, represents 45% of U.S. millionaires, will inherit 70% of the $41 trillion that enters generational wealth transfer over the next 40 years? Ninety percent of them control their money on their own at some point in their lives; they represent today 60% of college students and a greater percent of graduate students and still growing. They start more businesses at twice the rate of the rest of the population. They’re first-time homebuyers at a greater rate than the rest of the population. They’re breadwinners or co-breadwinners in 60% of households, and they live longer than the rest of the population by 6 to 8 years and they’re healthier while doing so…”
So far, so good – I’m tracking and very proud of my gender. But then her message goes south, well, at least in my book. Her recommendation is for the financial advisors to attack this market of rich, successful women, but with a different approach. Krawcheck’s observations (or what I would call stereotypical observations) of women include women not understanding jargon terms like “Monte Carlo simulation”, not caring about differences in large cap vs. small cap, or what the market is doing. She summarizes that women look to advisors to provide a safe place. I think what bothers me the most is that fact that all this is coming from a woman that represents women – she is basically saying that women, unlike men, don’t understand or care about investing and the advisors need to talk to them without using actual terms and literally treat them like children (while enjoying commissions from their portfolio). I truly hope that I’m taking all this out of context and there is well-meaning behind her recommendations. But the fact is – fellow successful women – there is a push out there in the financial services industry to “service” us. And you know what that entails (read several WCI posts on financial advisors.)
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I truly hope the gender stereotyping (of women not being as much into investing as men) is not true. But deep down, I can’t help but notice (disclaimer – these are non-statistical personal observations):
- Among my group of friends, the husbands take care of investing, the wives pay the bills.
- Of countless financial blogs out there, the majority authored by men deal with investing, while the majority of the ones authored by women deal with coupon clipping, fashion, shopping, child rearing, and organic living.
Gender Pay Gap
According to 2014 data issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women earn 82.1% of what men earn with the gap widening as women enter later stages of their career (25 to 54 years). Fortune examined the gap by occupation and identified the top 20 occupations with the largest gaps, 10 of which ended up being white collar occupations. Here are a few highlights:
| Occupation | Pay Gap | Women’s median weekly earnings | Men’s median weekly earnings |
| Personal Financial Advisors | 61.3% | $1,004 | $1,637 |
| Physicians and surgeons | 62.2% | $1,246 | $2,002 |
| Securities, commodities, and financial service sales agents | 65.1% | $883 | $1,356 |
| Sales and related workers | 70% | $664 | $949 |
| Marketing and sales managers | 70.8% | $1,150 | $1,624 |
| Human resource managers | 71.2% | $1,300 | $1,827 |
The debate of “why” will rage on forever, with the most common explanation related to women making deliberate choices to enhance work-life-balance at the expense of higher compensation. [Although even when controlling for obvious variables like these, the pay gap, although a much smaller one, persists in many professions. Unfortunately, most studies of this phenomenon, such as this one of docs, don't put those controls into place.-ed]
Gender Savings Gap
Now let’s examine savings behavior differences between men and women. Vanguard issued their “How America Saves 2014” report in September 2014 focusing on “The gendernomics of retirement saving”. According to their report, women have a higher participation than men in their employer retirement savings plan at all income levels. Not only do they participate more frequently, they contribute a larger percentage of their pay than men. Yet, probably due to the same factors as the gender pay differences, the average account balance of a woman is 64% that of a man.
Career Pay Progression
One of the writers for the accounting/auditing site GoingConcern.com put together this nifty analysis of average compensation over the course of 15 years at a big 4 public accounting firm. Make adjustments for geographical differences, and you get a general idea.
Source: GoingConcern.com
In this graph, the bottom line is the number of years since career onset, and the line just above it is age. So as the career progresses and promotions occur, pay goes up significantly for those first couple of decades.
For physicians the graph, (on average) would be close to zero until the late twenties and would stagnate at around 40-50K for a few years of residency and then would shoot up to 300K plus in early thirties, and for the most part would increase marginally from there.
Nature
This is where I’m going to tread very carefully, as a CPA talking to a bunch of physicians about the biology of women. Women have babies. That is a fact of life and there is no changing that. As everyone knows, the older the woman gets, the more difficult it may become. So essentially, take that salary graph and overlay it with your optimal child bearing years. It takes a good 10 years to invest in your career with marginal increases in salaries (or none at all if you are in medical school). The big career payoff (as a general rule) doesn’t come until after 10-15 years. Coincidentally, that’s about the time the clock starts ticking. So that’s when a large portion of amazing female brains leave the workforce, or cut it down to part time. Which means they have to do most of the savings when their compensation is the lowest.
What’s my point?
I’m not promoting working mothers, stay at home mothers, women equality, etc. in this post. (Not saying these topics are not important by any means, but they are topics for another discussion, not this one). What I’m laying out are the facts that we, successful women, have to deal with because they are very real and they exist and we have to figure out a way to continue being successful financially, professionally, and personally. Again, without placing blame or choosing sides, the fact is that women have to deal with these factors that most men don’t have to (although men probably also have gender-specific factors to deal with [like an overwhelming urge to buy expensive toys-ed.]) These factors include:
- Having children (and breastfeeding, as more and more women choose to do)
- Making a decision to sacrifice or scale down career (or making a sacrifice of spending less time with family and children in order to promote career)
- Societal pressures (cooking, laundry, school activities, etc. are traditionally women’s jobs – there are exceptions of course, but I’m talking generally here)
And the thing is – most women – don’t mind. I love scheduling my kids’ extracurricular activities, taking them to the doctor, music, etc. I prefer to shop for their clothes and cook and feed them. I am also one of the few female leaders at my organization with a very successful career.
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So then it comes down to time – how do women have time to do it all? Some make the choice to let the husband do the investing, but that by far is not the right answer. Your husband is your partner – and both partners should carry not 50%, but 100% and work with each other. I’m still trying to figure it all out, while prioritizing and not getting it all done. But at least, with the help of WCI, from savings and investing perspective – we have pretty much automated everything, or come up with life and financial hacks, to make it work.
I, for one, greatly appreciated WCI’s advice ever since discovering his blog. What impressed me the most was his editorial comment in Dr. Mom’s post regarding child care arrangements. Not only did he pay attention to something that most men wouldn’t even notice, he called it out. I would love to hear more from successful women out there on how they make it work.
Are you a highly paid female? What trials or gender-specific factors have you struggled with? What have you done to find that ever-elusive life-work balance? Comment below!
The reason I come to this website is to read about managing money. If i want to read about the “Joys of womanhood”, i will go some where else. If I want to learn about diversity, I will go some where else.
Martin,
Although this post, along with about 20-30% of the posts on this site are completely irrelevant for me, I think flaming the post as the “Joys of Womanhood” and “diversity” are not constructive. I don’t care about student lone management one for me, but I know that many of the readers need and want that information. Although there is less financial advice and number based strategy advice in this post, there is still information that can be gained from a financial perspective. As men you and I will never be pregnant for 9 months and breast feeding for another 3-12 months. There are direct financial consequences of this that need to be considered by any female physician wanting to have kids. The timing of this can have huge financial consequences long term. Decisions regarding time spent with kids vs number of dollars made are important for any parent, not just females. Maybe rethink your wording when posting a negative review….[Ad hominem removed.] Thanks,
Thanks for posting. Particularly interesting to me was the first section – as still a young (male) physician just beginning to be marketed to directly, I cringed at the thought of what the tone of a sales pitch might be to an intelligent, professionally successful woman.
Thanks for a lovely and insightful analysis.
The finance industry misses the mark for me personally by their tone that John alluded to in his comment. I have found a few flashes of brilliance though like here with WCI, Phil DeMuth’s The Affluent Investor, and Michael Kitces’s blog. In the beginning of my personal journey in finance I was very caught up in all the mathematical analysis with its concreteness and elegance. But, in truth for me, life isn’t so neatly packaged. Math is just a financial tool, not a crystal ball. I see all the math as the basic vocabulary and knowledge needed to get to the fun and interesting stuff which is the behavior and action.
As for the haters, WCI will tell you that you need a thick skin. For me as a pediatrician I spend a great deal of time fighting thick, eczematous skin so I would advise some humor. I will lend you the Sword of Gryffindor which I wield when negativity rises: Only imbibe what makes you stronger and be judicious of when you counter with Basilisk venom;)
Thanks again and best wishes!!
Via email:
I am very happy to read about posts such as this to point out the dilemma of choosing career or family or try to “have it all”! I am a female physician with three babies in the five years immediately after fellowship training. I too decide to put a temporary hold on my career in order to have a family of my own. The trade off is not too painful since my husband works very hard full time to support us. However, I admit I did get a little jealous when one of my friends told me the figure and the bonus she is making. However, I think we female professionals have to decide early on what is the most important thing for you that the current stage of your life. It is hard if not possible to have everything at the same time – you will have to give up something. At least now part time jobs are out there for female physicians. In terms of investing and finance, I have to thank WCI! I read your book and all your recommend books while on bed rest for my pregnancy. I start maximizing all the potential retirement accounts and learn about investing myself. Nobody will care about my money as much as I do. And I stick to the advise to live below my means! So I think female professionals have choices in their hands. Even if you want to pursue career first, you can bank their eggs (I know you will probably edit this – but it is a very important thing for us to consider it before you try to get pregnant before 37 since I have been on this route). Bottom line, know what you want and stick with it.
FANTASTIC post and there is a mountain more of information to dig into with this. Some very lucid points on the industry’s position with women. There are massive opportunities for money people who “get it”.
“Women have options; men have responsibilities.”……quoting my husband, here.
How have I balanced it all? I send my mule (oops! husband) out to the mine shaft daily. Meanwhile, I’ve always worked part-time, trade stocks like some people do crossword puzzles, raised up the babies, and just got home from pilates.
………not sure if there is any question, above. Just thought I’d chime in.
Excellent idea for a guest post. Excellent execution, too. I think we have to more open with ourselves and other about the choices we make with our time and our money. It’s not all math and hamster wheel Monte Carlo simulations. These are people’s lives, and I think every time you share a guest post, especially from someone with different demographic characteristics than WCI, you have improved the site.
I finished my residency approximately one year ago. I was very excited to get that first real paycheck. I through the grace of God (who provided me with extremely thick skin) had a child in my 4th year of residency. I had maternity leave and nothing else for leave during my 4/5 years of general surgery training. I was still making up call coverage in my last month of training. It was a living hell but my family and I endured. I then set off to plastic residency for 3 years. That was a great 3years! I delayed another child until now. I’m due in a few weeks. Pregnancy for me at 34 is much harder than at 29. I plan to take 6 weeks off. My job provides short term disability cover of a portion of my salary (look for this in your benefits when job searching)! Also FMLA doesn’t apply at most places until you are there a year (plan for your pregnancy around this). Last piece of advice don’t short change your help!!! If you have a good nanny pay her well and tell her so daily! Never underestimate the power of a good nanny (mine picks our son up after school, cleans our house, cooks a few meals a week and keeps the house hold running). We interview 20 before finding her. We tell her she’s the “key” to our success.
what a refreshing read that I feel often gets overlooked on this blog; keep it up WCI
Well I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this post on the “Joys of Womanhood” 😉 I have learned so much from WCI but it’s nice to hear from the female perspective. I think you did a great job of summarizing all the things I have experienced as a woman/wife/mother making decisions about my career. I’ve always been way more into financial planning and investing than my husband, but we always make the big decisions together-how to allocate resources, what investments to make, etc.
There are lots of ways to make your life work and to feel balanced. I love what one commenter above said about knowing what you want and sticking with it. It’s all about prioritizing. I had a kid in med school. Definitely would not recommend that to anyone, but I was able to take a year off afterwards and stay home with him and that really worked for my situation. And then I waited until after residency to work on another kid so I could have a 3 month maternity leave and minimal part time work for a year or two afterwards. I will probably always work part time because I know what I want and I’ve made decisions that reflect that. I have close friends that have gone the route of female surgeon above and have an amazing nanny that they love. This allows them to work more demanding jobs and to make more money and this works well for them. I don’t think either of us would trade places with the other but that doesn’t matter because it works for each of our families.
Bottom line, I’m glad I’m not in that 28% of women who would be homeless or broke if I lost my husband, thankful to be able to support myself and my family on my own if needed, and thankful for this blog for helping me on my way to a secure financial future.
I couldn’t follow this post – a jumble of disjointed ideas thrown together.
Male and female physicians get same pay for same work – a lap appy from medicare pays the same regardless of surgeon. Enough with the liberal pay gap claim, which is completely and entirely false.
Roger, that’s not actually completely true. An appy pays the same amount… if you work the same jobs. But women are more highly represented in academic positions (which pay less) and less represented in partner positions in private groups (which often pay more). So you can do the same amount of work but get paid less.
I think there are lots of good reasons for the (thankfully) narrowing pay gap that have little to do with politics (like career interruption, far more frequent for women.)
But like you, I’ve never actually seen it first hand. In residency, pay was exactly the same. In the military, pay was exactly the same. In my current job, both as a pre-partner and partner, pay is exactly the same per shift worked.
But I think the data is pretty clear, that even when corrected for amount of work done there is still a pay gap in many jobs, professions, corporations etc.
Roger & WCI,
I am sad that you have no first-hand knowledge of how female physicians are paid less. To call it “completely false” is just irresponsible. Surely you understand that private practice contracts and negotiations are fluid.
Some pretty insulting comments here for a professional board.
Not sure why you’re lumping me in with Roger. As near as I can tell we have opposing viewpoints. I would say it is a good thing that I have never been at a job where females got paid less. If everyone had that same situation, there would be no pay gap.
I struggled with this post because I didn’t agree with all the points made. I do believe pay gaps exist although personally I (don’t think) haven’t dealt with this since I work in a field where the pay gap is very tight, granted not considered high income.
There’s no question women feel the work-life balance pressure more simply because we bear children.
However I really don’t care what financial advisors think of women. If you take responsibility for your own finances, why do they matter? You’d be able to see right through the garbage they are spewing. I was in my early 20’s when I went to a motherly female financial advisor. My perception was that she’d take care of me. Fortunately I realized early on to cut my losses. I learned really quick about finances/investing/taxes after that. I have no one to blame but myself.
Since most high income professions are largely employed by men, the only other challenge I can think of are the “softer” issues women run into related to child-bearing. Sometimes it’s hard to be taken seriously when you’re in a high pressure meeting then morning sickness gets the best of you and you have to run out of the room. Or when your boss tells you you need to fly to Japan within the next week for a critical issue and you have to explain to him you are still nursing an infant at home. Talk about an a-w-k-w-a-r-d conversation to have with your boss. Fortunately there was no eye-rolling but boy that conversation was settled quickly!
Location.
Those challenges for working women are definitely real. But in our experience when you work in a low cost of living area that values your services and pays you double that of your former urban dwelling academic attendings (male or female), the choice to take a 10% pay cut for a more family friendly work schedule is made a bit easier. It doesn’t fix the pay gap but it can take the sting out of the challenges of being a female physician raising kids.
Great post. We are both PGY-4 residents (me in psych, her in PM&R). We had 1st child in med school and 2nd during PGY-I. I think duty hour rules (i.e. nightfloat systems) have made it manageable to have kids in residency. Also every year more people are couples-matching. Definitely need a good nanny, parents not too far away, understanding program director, spouse that steps up and does his/her equal share if not more. Medical training is very unfriendly towards young mothers, yet we never see this make it to pages of NYT. Hospitals offer terrible benefits to young parents compared to companies like Yahoo/Google/Microsoft/Netflix. Experience is dependent on the program director. I heard of PDs who discouraged fathers from taking paternity leave. The licensing boards are inflexible as well when it comes to having time off due to having a new child. I feel for women that wait after residency to have kids. We are very glad with our decision to have kids when we did. Also women I think are not advised enough during medical school about choosing a field that will help them achieve their family goals.
As a woman, wife, mother and solo general dentist, I can relate to the struggles of trying to achieve the work-life balance. I manage and run my dental practice, as well as paying our home bills and handling all of our investment decisions.
When the kids were young, we had a nanny, as well as my supportive husband who had a flexible work schedule enabling him to attend many of the school activities as one of the only male parents in my kid’s classrooms, while I worked full-time in my solo practice.
During the work week, I started my day early in order to workout, pay bills or have uninterrupted “me” time, something that was lacking after my kids were born. I did major cooking on the weekends. My husband also contributed by doing many of the traditional female jobs around the house when they needed to be done, rather than waiting for me to do them.
Now that my kids are in college, I am getting closer to achieving work-life balance, but not sure I will ever really get there! I am currently organizing our retirement investments and we can almost see the retirement light at the end of the tunnel…and it feels great.
Thank you for this post. I am a single woman who just started in practice after finishing training. I learned about WCI from a male colleague after a random conversation about how to manage money while moonlighting. It has been one of the best learning experiences for me and the learning is ongoing. I was a frequent moonlighter in fellowship and used the extra income to pay off all my credit card debt, save for an emergency fund, 6 months living expenses and an additional “play” savings account to pay for the nice things that make me happy, like a good hair stylist, shopping with my mom, etc. I started contributing to a Roth IRA and when I reached the income limits, a back door Roth. I contributed to my training institution’s 403b after they finally allowed housestaff to do so at the beginning of my third year, though without any matching (pikers). I built up a little nest egg, not where I want to be eventually, but I am getting there. In my new job, I am maxing out all possible retirement contributions, even though it hurts a bit, but after reading many posts and comments on WCI, I decided it was better to never “see” the money so I wouldn’t be tempted to spend more. I have a married friend, who even though she is choosing to work part time, learned a lot from WCI, realized that her and her husband’s financial adviser has been cheating them (no fiduciary responsibility – just guided her towards options that made the most money for the adviser and not for clients; 1-2% growth over the last decade!!) and changed her disability and life insurance plans, essentially leading the adviser to “fire” her (good riddance I said). I agree women sometimes make different choices, to work part time to care for their families when their husband/partner can be the breadwinner. As a society, we don’t acknowledge the importance of those choices. I have heard/read a lot about the pay gap and I think about it sometimes. I work just as hard as any man in the practice, I take call and I want to get paid just as much, fairly, equitably. My take on it is to maximize my income and savings now because I am already a decade behind my contemporaries. I have no idea if I will want to work part time if/when I have children. My mother worked full time when I was growing up and so did my grandmother. My aunt stayed home and raised her kids after her second child was born. Different people, different choices (though of course it should be noted that it is not a choice for many families if mom’s income is needed to make ends meet). I have made a conscious effort to be clear about what I want and to educate myself about how to get what I think I deserve. I was honestly surprised by how flexible negotiations can be and I can see how women who don’t ask would not receive (Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation–and Positive Strategies for Change by Linda Babcock is an interesting read). During interviews, I was shocked (and offended) by some low ball offers I received and walked away from them. I am worth more than that. I am learning.
I’ve been only recently introduced to this blog. I started reading the “new to the blog” posts and am only now reading the daily blog posts. I was very impressed to see this post and am grateful for the encouragement that I received from it.
I am a female EM MD practicing full time in a Level II trauma center. I am also a medical director for an aeromedical transport system. I am good at making money and just learning now what to do with it.
My husband is a stay at home dad (for the past 11 months) for our 3 children aged 3 and under. He is a Civil Engineer who paid our way through 1/2 of medical school and residency. He’s currently getting his Masters in Accounting (nerd) in his “free time”. We recognize that we have a unique situation and don’t have a lot of sources for information targeted toward us. We are in a 100%/100% relationship. We are a “one house, one spouse” family who both came from lower middle class backgrounds.
In the past 4 weeks we’ve (together) really gotten into Dave Ramsey and WCI, eagerly reading posts/books/listening to podcasts separately and together. Our 2 year plan will have us student loan free, and 6 years to have a paid off mortgage – even if my husband stays home for the next 4 years. Since I’m only 2 years into practice and have had 5 months of maternity leave during that time, I consider paying off my approx. $280,000 student loans that quickly pretty good.
Thank you for recognizing that there are many types of readers out there. I for one don’t understand half of the investing terms or theories posted, and right now our goal is truly on paying off debt. But I know that in 2 years when we’ve got more funds to target toward investing that I have a terrific resource when I get to that point.
FYI, I totally agree that I haven’t seen any kind of gender-based bias when it comes to payment. I knew that having 1 kid in residency and 2 my first 2 years out would put a damper on my income, and we planned accordingly (sign-on bonus= baby bonus). I definitely don’t play the “poor me” female card and don’t know many practicing female physicians who do. Women in high end careers DO have different priorities, options and goals than other women, and the men with whom they work. Thank you.
As a 31 year old relatively highly paid female (my husband and I are both bankers) who has been married for about 18 months, this topic is on my mind a lot and a frequent topic of conversation in our house. My/our “solution” shifts between opting not to have kids at all (which is sounding like a better plan the more I learn about parenting in our society) and super-saving for 5 years or so so we can early retire before starting a family.
I have little interest in paying a nanny or daycare thousands of dollars a month to raise my child while I go off to sit at a job I don’t really care about. I also have little interest in giving up my paycheck/independence, along with the social and intellectual benefits of work, to change diapers and clean all day every day while occasionally suffering the indignities of cliche conversations with other privileged non-working mommies at play dates etc. (no offense to stay at home moms at all; I just find the usual baby clothes/husband woes/weight loss woman chatter to be grating).
You can hire someone else to clean.
You might benefit from meeting some more stay-at-home moms. I’m not one, but I know one, and I hear very little chatter on your mentioned subjects. But hey, figure out what’s going to make you happiest and do that. I just see a disconnect between your view of the downsides of work instead of being home (“a job I don’t really care about”) and your view of the upsides of work instead of being home (“social and intellectual benefits of work.”) Either it’s better for you to work or it’s not. You sound conflicted. I suspect many are in the same boat.
I find that as a YOUNG female surgeon, I find it hard to do as many surgeries as my male counterparts. I have little trouble getting and keeping patients because I have a good bedside manner. However, I don’t fit the right stereotype for “surgeon”.
My older patients (the ones that need surgery) are always surprised that I would be the surgeon. I have had several schedule surgery with another doctor who is male. I feel that even when the patient sticks with me, I have to fight for this privilege more with extra chair time. When they see the stereotypical “male” surgeon, they are convinced much faster than when they see me.
I am consistently hoping that part of this is an age issue (I am a new grad), but then again older women fight a strong bias too.
In the OR and ER I also have to spend more time on traditionally female tasks (like bringing bedpans or doing cleanup) whereas the male physicians I know waltz in with many helpers (nurses/ancillary staff) in tow.
So as a female, even if I am getting paid the same Medicare rates as the male, I come out lower. I end up doing less surgery, and I end up gettting more of the “difficult” time consuming patients that value touchy-feely good bedside manner.
I am not married, have no kids, am not slowing down… but yes my income would be higher as a male.
#ILookLikeASurgeon
Interesting perspective. That’s the first time I’ve heard that. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for saying this. I have had the same experience as a neurologist. I’m three years out of fellowship and am the only woman of color in my division (7 physicians + 2 PAs).
I’ve had a number of patients, both in training and especially since becoming an attending, express surprise that I am their doctor, because I don’t look like the stereotype of the Old Bow-Tie Neurologist. I’ve also had several patients in the last couple years seek second opinions from my white male colleagues.
Moreover, I’ve also had coded and not-so-coded remarks directed at me from staff. Talking to other women in my department (and peers at the places where I trained) this is extremely common for women physicians, but we don’t often talk about it, especially in front of men, because it rarely rises to the level of something actionable. So while this might be the first time you’re hearing about this, WCI, it’s definitely not an isolated phenomenon.
Frankly, if I leave clinical practice, it won’t be because of kids or work-life balance, it’ll be because of the implicit and explicit bias of my patients and my colleagues around women in medicine.
I suspect you’ll find most other professional fields are even worse than medicine in this regard. Take financial services for example. Imagine if all of medicine were orthopedics.
Good post. For sure, women are not involved enough with investing. Not just to invest, but understand and learn about it. I see it all the time when talking amongst my physician, pharmacist, dentist friends (who are also female). They have no interest in the stock market. However, I am thankful for sites such as this for spreading the word. Learning about investing and being in control of your own finances are paramount for professional (and all) women. True wealth is not built through a salary but making your money work for you through investing. Financial independence is important for couples to understand together, but women need to take a more active role. Just my opinion.