Fast Funny Women by Gina Barreca

Author:Gina Barreca [Barreca, Gina]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: essay, comedy, nonfiction
Publisher: Woodhall Press
Published: 2021-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Real Doctor

Dr. Mary Lupo

I have often felt I was born at a perfect time. I came of age in the ’60s and witnessed firsthand monumental changes: the music of the 1960s, the space race, the civil rights movement, and, most important to me, the women’s movement for equality. Before that time, if you were a very smart woman, odds were you became either a teacher or an executive secretary. That meant you were either helping men learn something or making them look good in the workplace. My mother was just such a secretary. But I was lucky. My medical school class at Tulane (which has always had a history of social innovation) was about 40 percent female in 1976. Even so, new opportunities for women were often met with resistance or oblivion before they were accepted. This was a perfect example.

It was 1982, and as a second-year resident at Tulane, one of my duties was to teach second-year medical students at the famed Charity Hospital. “Big Charity,” as it was often called, served the needs of the indigent population of New Orleans.

My method of teaching was to reinforce the student reading with real-world examples. Dermatology is a very visual and tactile specialty, and there is simply no substitute for hands-on inspection and assessment. So I would allow the students to examine my patient alone, do a physical exam, obtain the pertinent history, and then come out of the room and present me with their observations and diagnosis.

This one time, all three of my assigned students were male. They went in, evaluated the patient, and came out to discuss their findings with me. After hearing them out, I said, “OK, let’s go in together.”

Sitting in the chair was a delightful, elderly woman. I greeted and examined her, then I stood up and proceeded to educate my students on what they got wrong, what they should have seen and thought, and what the correct diagnosis and treatment were. When I was done, the lady looked up at the three young men and said, “You doctors should be ashamed that this nurse had to come in and tell you what is wrong with me.”

The young men visibly paled at the idea of me, as a fiery female, taking such an insult in front of them. After all, they knew I was already a licensed physician and they were only students. But I did not want to hurt the patient’s feelings and embarrass her about her inadvertent demotion of her “real doctor.” I turned to her, sat down, patted her knee, and said, “You are absolutely right.”

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