Telling Stories—When Will They Ever Learn?

Recently I spoke with now-colleague, former-resident about her life partner’s experience with promotion at a world renowned cancer center.  This woman is an expert on the risk factors and patterns of disease in cancer patients.  Her current research in women with ovarian cancer is particularly noteworthy.

Her curriculum vitae (CV) is quite extensive and equally impressive.  She currently has more than $4 million in NIH grants, has published more than 80 original peer-reviewed original research papers, and has lectured both nationally and internationally.  She is sought by the best institutions all over the world.  And as she deserved, she recently earned promotion to full professorship.  She is also a valued colleague and friend to many of us who rely on her to mentor us and the next generation of medical researchers and caregivers.

So what’s the problem?  With a new rank, one is entitled to greater compensation.   (Sort of like when you get a promotion there is usually a monetary benefit based on past achievements and future anticipated ongoing success.)  Typically in academic institutions, salary ranges by rank are recommended.  When the decision about her compensation at her new rank was made, her salary was set at the lowest level for her new rank.

Okay, so you are a new full professor.  But your grant monies alone will more than pay for this salary.  And the institution is still making a sizable profit on your work.  Right, but this is a mutually beneficial relationship.  You couldn’t do it without us.  Yeah, but, you wouldn’t have done it without me. And so the argument can go back and forth as to why or why not someone should get a certain salary and why.

However when the conversation (implicitly or explicitly) goes something like, “we know you won’t leave Buffalo because of your personal life.  Your partner makes a lot of money as a surgeon.  You don’t really need to make so much, do you?,” then the argument has to be stopped dead in its tracks.

Could this still be happening in the year 2009?  Yes.  Sad to say, isn’t it.   Only two people were witness to this interchange, and sadly one of them didn’t have a tape recorder.

So what can we do?  In the individual case, we have to protest.  We have to publicize these breaches whenever they occur.  We have to tell these stories.  We have to smoke each and every person, whether individually or as a representative of the institution’s culture, so than on one will be allowed to pick us off one at a time, behind closed doors.

This means public discussions when we congregate with our colleagues, male and female, junior and senior, believers and skeptics alike.

This week I also communicated with my close friend and colleague, Joan Arvedson, PhD.  I recruited Joan to be the director of the department a speech/language and hearing at the Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, when there was such a department.  We have co-authored a book, Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing Disorders, which is in its second edition.  She has remained a close friend and colleague.

As immediate past president and therefore present program director for the 2009 annual meeting of the Society for Ear, Nose and Throat Advances in Children (SENTAC), Joan suggested we do a panel on How the Gender Gap Affects Children’s Healthcare. It takes a lot of courage to focus on this issue.  I couldn’t be more thrilled.  This year the society is focusing on advocacy, and what could be more relevant to women and their children?  And it is also relevant to the medical doctors and other healthcare practitioners who care for these patients, as they are also increasingly women.  I do believe the time has come to talk face to face.  It is time to publicly take responsibility for these issues.  It is time to find ways to keep our women healthcare providers, physicians and others, out of the courtroom and in the house of medicine.

When will they ever learn?  Only as soon as the message is heard.  Only as soon as we insist that the gender gap be closed.  Only as soon as we insist that our government enforces the laws that they make on our behalf. Only as soon as we take to heart that this is the right thing to do.  It is, after all, in the best interests of the individual and our society as a whole.