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Surgery is the most martial and masculine of medical specialties. The combat with death is carried out in the operating room, where the intrepid surgeon challenges the forces of destruction and disease. What, then, if the surgeon is a woman? Anthropologist Joan Cassell enters this closely guarded arena to explore the work and lives of women practicing their craft in what is largely a man's world.Cassell observed thirty-three surgeons in five North American cities over the course of three years. We follow these women through their grueling days: racing through corridors to make rounds, perform operations, hold office hours, and teach residents. We hear them, in their own words, discuss their training and their relations with patients, nurses, colleagues, husbands, and children.Do these women differ from their male colleagues? And if so, do such differences affect patient care? The answers Cassell uncovers are as complex and fascinating as the issues she considers. A unique portrait of the day-to-day reality of these remarkable women, The Woman in the Surgeon's Body is an insightful account of how being female influences the way the surgeon is perceived by colleagues, nurses, patients, and superiors--and by herself.
Joan Cassell PhD was trained by Margaret Mead, famed anthropologist, and was chosen by the American College of Surgeons, the most respected surgical association of US surgeons, to research and write this book. There is no fluff in her: She is as qualified to write this as any can be. She spent 24/7 with these women and dug into every dirty detail of their personal and professional lives. She lived with some during their interview periods. Although only a short 20 years ago, the US had virtually no female surgery mentors, no handbooks, no blogs or accessible networking to guide these young women through this bed of coals. Honorable loyal male mentors comfortable with the role of simply nurturing talented women protege were rare or evanescent.She presents her position in classic anthropological fashion. There is something more simple, more animal, more evolutionarily-based than the game-playing male-female antics of a bad soap opera going on here. She tables it carefully and tastefully. The hierarchies of behavior in this small closed society have similarities to early tribal cultures rather than large open-thinking democracies. Read "Guns, Germs, & Steel" by Jared Diamond for more support of human behavior based on subculture size. She is seeing these women in a 'point in time' and she does not overstep those boundaries.One of the most important conclusions she makes is the need for strong mentoring of women surgeons. I would be so interested to see a follow-up book on this a generation later with the same focus on anthropology, since the total number of US surgeons has not changed much, but the gender and level of international diversity within training programs has.Thank you Joan Cassell.Margaret A Walter MD FACS, aka Kath, "A Worst Case Scenario"
