Scarlett McNally: Changing surgery to support women surgeons

I sometimes worry that I’ve made things worse for the women surgeons of the future. I went through surgical training when things were very different. We operated all night if there were operations to do, but this meant that patients, staff, and organisations had to accept me as a surgeon—otherwise, operations wouldn’t happen. It’s frustrating when doctors today are taken out of theatre to complete administrative tasks when they could be operating. My weekend shifts used to be Friday morning to Monday evening, but I was given a bed on site, whereas registrars today have to work punishing consecutive 12.5 hour shifts, with long commutes, causing damaging fatigue.1In my first orthopaedic job in the early 1990s, I remember being mortified when my consultant assumed that I was discussing my menstrual cycle when I’d been explaining that our firm’s rota of “1 in 4” meant that we had lots of inpatients…
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