An Historic Meeting on Martha’s Vineyard, July 24, 2008

On Martha’s Vineyard, July 24, 2008, 3 women surgeons (and 2 public relations experts as witnesses) met for the first time to share their stories of legal action they were forced to take against their colleagues and their employers, large and powerful hospitals and universities.  These three surgeons were brought together by Dr. Lawrence Huntoon, a crusader against physician targeting and sham peer review.  Each one of these women had contacted Dr. Huntoon because she had been targeted for speaking up for quality and equality. We each sought his help.  He recognized the power in the three, and he put us in touch with one another.  After only a few phone calls, we knew we had to meet.

Martha’s Vineyard is sacred vacation time.  But still I risked my family’s fury and hosted what I now know will be seen as an historic event for women in medicine and especially for women in surgery.

We three women are of three generations.  I am the so-called elder stateswoman—full professor, “been there, done that” for 25 years, having weathered the storm of gender discrimination litigation and still recovering from its aftermath.  During those three vacation weeks, I was technically on suspension for allegedly being a “disruptive physician.”  I believe I was experiencing physician targeting and sham peer review—a complaint which is pending before the Public Health Council of the State of New York.

I hosted the meeting with salads, sandwiches, and sweets.  Dr. Sagun Tuli and Dr. Deepa Soni travelled from Boston that day to meet.  Kate and Gretel (my PR team) came the night before.

Dr. Sagun Tuli is the mid-career spinal neurosurgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.  Her sotto voce and petite build belie her quiet, but unmistakable strength, power and self-assurance that radiate from her.  She was taking time from her extensive preparations for her claims of retaliation, hostile work environment, slander and gender discrimination case against her well known and very powerful chairman, neurosurgeon Art Day, MD, and her Harvard University Affiliated Hospital.

Dr. Deepa Soni is the young, ambitious, hardworking and accomplished neurosurgeon with specialty training in interventional vascular neurosurgery.  Instead of further climbing the academic ladder where she had already made incredible progress, she was forced to file a lawsuit.  Gender discrimination also against Dr. Day and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  Without the support of her powerful chair, she was having difficulty finding employment despite her excellent credentials and reputation because she spoke up when being treated unfairly as a woman. Having just finished her training—18 years of schooling and residency after high school, including a fellowship—she was still reeling from these betrayals.

Looking out our window onto Edgartown Bay, during the only rainy day of my three weeks on the Vineyard that year, we told each other our stories while Kate and Gretel, our two public relations experts, bore witness to the unfolding drama.  All of these stories share common themes:  ambitious, hard working, determined women who are not afraid to speak up for quality and equality.  When they did, they immediately began to experience work place harassment and mobbing.  Why?  Because we were feared and even hated without cause.  We were resented for our achievements.  And, sadly, because there was a failure of others, presumably good people, to help, either from fear or from ignorance.

We three women surgeons had climbed our mountains and instead of seeing the world at our feet, we faced a bleak and lonely environment and another, less familiar, mountain to scale—a mountain of gender discrimination and unfair treatment.

We vowed to take our energies, our ideas and our fortunes, and to link them together to make sure that the treatment we had received would not be repeated.  We started to list other women surgeons we knew with similar stories, some of whom would not or could not climb that second mountain.  Some of whose talents were being wasted.  Within minutes we had more than 20. We vowed to make our treatment a thing of the past for all women who dare to become physicians and especially for those who scale the mountains to become surgeons.

We became women doctors united for equity!  In a 12 page manifesto we articulated our mission:  to bring together women doctors who have experienced prejudicial treatment in the medical work environment in order to share their stories for the purpose of effecting substantive, systemic change for women doctors and their patients now and in future generations.

We articulated our 6 specific goals:

1. Describe and define the many faces of gender discrimination for female doctors including harassment, equal pay, differential treatment/opportunities, slander and retaliation.
2. Make gender discrimination against women doctors a public health crisis and a public policy issue.
3. Develop a community of doctors to end isolation and fear, with the power to help each other advocate for women to the benefit of all.
4. Develop an organization that transforms these stories into viable business ventures so as to fund our efforts.
5. Partner with other organizations to coordinate and disseminate these efforts, and
6. Expose and change the highly ineffective legal system that was the present and only venue for bringing forward these concerns.

We came away with 7 action items, and as you can see, we were not afraid to think big.  After all, we always had to think big to get where we were on that fateful day.  We made lists of others with whom we would begin to partner.

So where are we now?  On February 25, 2009 the Boston Globe shouted:  Surgeon Awarded $1.6 m in Sex Bias Suit.  Sagun Tuli had won!  She had proved her claims of retaliation, hostile work environment, violations of the whistle blower act, interference with advantageous business relationships, and slander.  But not her claims for gender discrimination and pay equity.  She is most certainly a woman of valor.  Deepa Soni is working in a new institution and building her caseload to sit for her boards.  She continues to work on her litigation and is planning our first symposium.

As for me, today I am launching my website, www.lindabrodskymd.com.  It’s a place where I tell my story.  It’s a place where I hope others will tell their stories.  It’s a place where we can continue to fight, to build, and to live by our promise to make unfair treatment of women physicians and surgeons past history.

As I write this “kick-off” blog, my daughter, Dana, a first year medical student at UCSF called me.  She wanted me to read a NY Times article in Sunday’s business section: “Why Is Her Paycheck Smaller?”  www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/business/01metrics.html.  Dana noted that the greatest gap was for women physicians and she also knew that it could not be explained solely by the differences in specialty choice.  Dana wanted to plan a workshop to enlighten her fellow students.

I wanted to cry.  Will it ever end?  It must.  And I intend to give it a try.  Please come join me.