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The Dr. Linda Brodsky Memorial Fund

By Linda | February 27, 2014

Dr Linda BrodskyThe American Medical Women’s Association has created this fund honoring Dr. Brodsky’s memory by endorsing her passions for gender equity, medical student success, clinical research and the advancement of women physicians. Funds will be used to support the Brodsky Memorial Scholarship and related initiatives promoting gender equity in medicine including but not limited to medical student projects, relevant research and quality of care. AMWA is a 501(c)(3) organization so all donations are tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.

The American Medical Women’s Association is accepting gifts in memory of Dr. Linda Brodsky.

Donations can be made using the link below

www.amwa-doc.org/donate/dr-linda-brodsky-memorial/

Or you can mail your donation to:

American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA)
12100 Sunset Hills Road, #130
Reston, VA 20190

Checks should be payable to AMWA

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Happy Birthday to Humankind: Jews Get Ready to Celebrate the New Year

By Linda | September 4, 2013

Rosh Hashannah is literally the head of the year, or the Jewish new year.  It is “early” this year.  The summer has barely ended and we are getting ready to spend many hours praying, celebrating, eating and turning inwards to assess our relationship as individual humans with our creator.

Many layers are peeled back so that we can find the core meeting.  Starting with the sweetness of apples and honey, the signature food, we remind ourselves how sweet it is to be alive.

Then is the sounding of the shofar–a ram’s horn.  Three sounds cry out for us to attend to the business of the day–reconnecting with yourself, reconnecting with G-d.

And finally the several times we take care to think about the sins we have committed against others and against G-d.  From reading the passage of the binding of Isaac to the custom of tashlich–literally tossing our sins into flowing water, we begin the ten days of repentance which ends with Yom Kippur–26 hours this year of fasting and praying to be written in the book of life for the coming year.

And so we go around wishing each other L’shannah tovah (to a Happy New Year).  And we hope that the ones we love are there to touch with words and deeds so that we may have another year together in love and life. What can be more wonderful than to wish each other a happy and healthy new year!

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Do Women Really Want to Be Perfect? Another Voice Heard!

By Linda | September 3, 2013

Debora Spar, the president of Barnard, the elite woman’s college across the street from Columbia University in NYC has a new book.  The basic premise is that women cannot “have it all” because in their struggle for power they got stuck in “an endless quest for perfection.”

Stunned, we are unable to make all the choices!  Are we really stunned by too many choice?  We fought to have choices, not to have everything.  We fought to find our own ways and shed the bonds (or binders/bras) that had shaped our femininity into something that tethered us.  Now we are tethered by this unending discussion of what women want and how do they get it.

This dilemma for the feminist was previously and perhaps originally brought to light in 1986 by Harriet Braiker, PhD in her book The Type E Woman:  Everything to Everybody.  So what exactly is it, according to Spar, that is new? Read More »

Posted in Women at Work | Leave a comment

We Don’t Need to Be Perfect! Do We?

By Linda | August 29, 2013

Role modeling is one of the cornerstones of good parenting. For mothers, like some of you and me, our values are reflected not only in our behavior but also in our appearance. These values are communicated every day and in every way to our children.

Sound overwhelming? Well, it certainly is. The responsibility and worry if “this” regrettable action or “that” cross word is going to result in a “ruined” child. Well, it doesn’t work that way.  So stop your worrying because you don’t need to be perfect to raise healthy daughters and sons. You don’t have to look perfect or act perfect or be perfect. In fact, trying to be too perfect may result in a child who just never feels good enough and suffers in another way.

It’s really about the core values we want to impart to our children. In today’s fast paced world, where the choices for just about everything are just about limitless, we tend to think more about the décor of the nursery than we do about the values we want to give to that little person who will occupy the crib.

How many of us have sat down and really thought about what lessons we want to teach our children daughters? Most of us haven’t, but I think we would benefit if we did. Read More »

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Not Guilty! Can Mothers Learn the Art of Letting Go of the Guilt?

By Linda | August 27, 2013

Women, especially we mothers, can be our own harshest critics. And when we don’t live up to our own very high expectations, we experience one of the most destructive feelings—guilt. We take the blame. We carry the responsibility. And we always find fault. With ourselves and with our performance as mothers.

I remember the first time I left my infant son he was 5 weeks old. But this was not the first opportunity I had to feel guilty. After only 5 weeks, 5 painful, solitary weeks, I weaned him from the breast. Breastfeeding was an experience that I did not enjoy and was glad to have finished.

Read More »

Posted in My Family/My DNA, The Confessional | Tagged guilt, motherhood, parenting | 2 Comments

Women’s Equality Day Is Here Again. Where Are You?

By Linda | August 26, 2013

Today is Women’s Equality Day. Again. You forgot? Never knew? Join the crowd. Why this day?  The end of summer?  Women’s suffrage.  Passage of the 19th amendment to the US Constitution.  And what have we done with that vote? 

Not to be forgotten, Congresswoman Bella Abzug sponsored legislation in 1971 giving our president the opportunity each and every year to proclaim August 26 Women’s Equality Day.  And his proclamation has been made.  I find it discouraging that the fact that there is even a need for these special days and proclamations.

Is there still a need? Maybe history will tell. 

The First Wave of Feminism: Can you imagine the excitement of the women in 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York, when they had their first conference on women’s rights? They worked for 72 years before the first critical step of gaining a women’s right to vote was achieved. Do you remember the stories of heroic women suffragettes (Glynis Johns as Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins, the movie, notwithstanding) who faced prison to protest their status as less than equal participants in our democracy?

Read More »

Posted in Adventures in Advocacy, Women at Work | Tagged gender equity, women's rights | 2 Comments

Where Science Meets Real Life: A Feminist’s Journey to Unlocking the Secrets of the Tonsils

By Linda | August 23, 2013

“How did you do it all?”  That is the most common question I am asked.  And I give the usual answers of being efficient, needing less sleep than most, and having lots of help.

But truly, there is more to it than that.

When I was given a most unusual assignment as a visiting professor to talk about some research topic with some “women in medicine” stuff thrown in.  So I looked at my research career in a new way.  I started to see themes that would have relevance to how women in medicine can do meaningful research using their special gifts, their own ways of working and strategies that could be capitalized on.  Here are three examples of what I mean.  (Shouldn’t give away the whole lecture in one short blog post, now, should I?)

Three months after starting to work as an academic pediatric otolaryngologist, I was faced with a parent who asked a very legitimate question.  I recommended a tonsillectomy for her child due to airway obstruction.  ” But Dr. Brodsky, my child has never had a sore throat.  Why are her tonsils so big?”  And I had no answer for this mother because I did not know.  And as it turns out, neither did anyone else.

Lesson # 1.  Look to your patients who have seemingly simple questions for a rich source of material to study.  Combine common clinical problems with sophisticated research questions.  Make it easy on yourself.  The more your learn the “sexier” the research will become.

So I thought about why these tonsils got big.  I started by looking at the bacteria and viruses that might cause problems that weren’t recognized.  So I went to some of the infectious disease people and teamed up with them.  They needed mucous that I was suctioning from the middle ear for some funded research they were doing, and I wanted quantitative core cultures of the tonsils.

Lesson #2.  Give help to get help.  As it turned out, I then became a co-investigator on the next (very large) otitis media grant and have collaborated with these wonderful colleagues for 30 years, as we embark on another study of the tonsils.

The lack of knowledge of the clinical behavior of the tonsils (and adenoids–sister organs, also much ignored and major players in sinuses and ear problems) was almost as serious as the lack of consensus about their removal–from the techniques to pre-operative evaluation to post-operative recovery.

Lesson #3.  Multi-task whenever possible.  The same patients, operation, literature reviews, IRB approvals, and all the other infra-structure that has to be set up can be used all at once, and again and again.

So to wrap this up–women physicians tend to be good listeners.  We work well on teams.  And we can do several things well at once, concentrating on each one at a time.  And now you know a few of my secrets as to how I was able to become a successful researcher.

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Bouncing Back Into the World of Academic Medicine–How this “Project” Chose Me?

By Linda | August 22, 2013

When the gender discrimination lawsuit settled with the University at Buffalo in 2007, I agreed to retire from the faculty (with my full retirement benefits like lifetime health and retention of my title although I could not use “emeritus” meaning with merit after my title of Full Professor of Otolaryngology and Pediatrics).  So there went my academic career.  Or so I thought.

Medicine is divided into two camps.  The “elite” medical school faculty who belong to an institution that is responsible to teach, research, build programs and see patients and the rest of the medical community–those doctors who care for the vast majority of patients (a/k/a “schleppers”).  Most, but not all,  community based doctors usually do not participate in academic activities such as research and lectures.

So as I licked my wounds and decided to put behind me my academic career which had already yielded 100 published papers and book chapters, two books and scores of national and international talks and lectures, I pursued advocacy and started to blog and to build a help center for women physicians, Women MD Resources.  And my practice continued to grow.

Try as I might, I couldn’t stop myself from asking (and trying to answer) those nagging research questions.  I couldn’t stay away from teaching.  And I was recruited into service through the American Academy of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS).  So I was back in the academic game, just in a different ballpark.  Highly engaged in Women in Otolaryngology, new connections landed me my latest and most intriguing assignment.

Former president of the AAO-HNS, J. Regan Thomas, MD, Chair of Otolaryngology (ENT) at the University of Illinois asked me to speak at their academic year kickoff, Louis B. Scaramella lecture.  Regan wanted something that would be research oriented with a bit of “women in medicine” thrown in.  A tall order.

Next post:  The 2013 Louis B. Scaramella Lecture:  “Where Science Meets Real Life:  A Feminists Journey to Unlocking the Secrets of the Tonsils”

Posted in Adventures in Advocacy, On the Job | Tagged academic medicine, advocacay, women in medicine | Leave a comment

Five Years, 477 Posts–Taking Stock of the Brodsky Blog

By Linda | August 21, 2013

August, 2008.  All I wanted to do was write a book about my adventures in gender discrimination.  That’s how it all started 5 years ago.

“First, create an audience.  Write a blog,” was the advice I received and took from my public relations/image creators.  At first it was scary and hard.  Then as time went on it became easier and more satisfying.  Audience growth hasn’t reached the 40,000 per month that are necessary for any one to seriously consider me having a vigorous enough audience to support traditional print book publishing.

So five years later, still no book and by the numbers, not much of an audience.  Blogs are ranked and I am somewhere in the top 250,000 when it comes to “most read blogs,” last time I looked about one year ago.  But what I lack in quantity, I enjoy in quality. My readers are caring (thank you all for the comments on line and off line about my Dad), loyal, interactive and are steadily increasing (this is a thinly veiled plea for you to share this blog with all your friends on face book, linked-in, Google + and Twitter @lindabrodskymd just for starters.)

What do the more successful bloggers do?  Shameless promotion (as I tried to do above).  Also most write everyday.  They write shorter pieces.  They are already famous and build on that audience.  Or they might have themes–take Gretchen Rubin and the Happiness Project or Julie Powell and Julie and Julia. (I had secretly hoped that Meryl Streep would do the movie version of my book.  I will not give up on that hope, never, never.)

So at this juncture, I have decided to write something (almost) everyday about what I think–about medicine, about my friends/family and about my inner and outer challenges.  And as I weave my way through authentic feelings, silly troubles, major catastrophes, or mundane observations, I hope you, the reader will continue to engage me with your comments/criticisms and support.   And for the more serious treatment of “my book theme”–gender bias and discrimination experienced by women physicians, visit (and sign up for our newsleter and posts) Women MD Resources.  Lots going on there, too.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Mourning Milton Brodsky 1928-2013

By Linda | August 12, 2013

Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, MA, August 4, 2013

Two a.m. phone calls on vacation are never good news.  And so last Sunday morning began.  It was not unexpected given the events of the last few weeks.  After another emergency trip to Florida, I saw my Dad after a heart attack and with my siblings helped him make a decision regarding risky balloon angioplasty.

He survived the hospital and was going through rehab to get him home and back to his usual independent self.  He was doing great.  Just the day before had a “terrific” day, breathing “great”, and “getting great care” in the cardiac rehab hospital.  But I knew it would be soon.  He had stopped eating.  Lost 30 pounds.  The rally before the end.

No time to let it sink in.  Calls to be made.  People informed about the funeral the following day.  Gutterman’s Funeral Services had to be contracted to fly the body back from Florida to New Montefiore Cemetary in Farmingdale, Long Island, NY.  He would be buried along side my Mom.

We got on a plane from Martha’s Vineyard and headed to the “other” Island (Long Island) where I had grown up, where my father had lived most of his life.  The next day greeted our gloom with beautiful weather.  Aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, siblings, friends, mother-in-law, two of our three children, and my husband held us up during this most painful time.  Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments
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    Linda Brodsky, MD
    Linda Brodsky Respected Pediatric Surgeon, Advocate and Mentor for the Next Generation of Women Doctors, and Founder of Women MD Resources

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