BoopityBoop

A "few years ago" is what?... 2011? 2015? 2016? 2017?! Frankly, a "few years ago" excuse is a cop-out in 2019. This behaviour wasn't excusable back then, and it definitely does not hold up now. You may not have intended to frame it this way, but by saying "But yes it is appalling what has occurred in the past here" you are 1) excusing/defending the past and 2) making it sound as if it isn't a problem anymore. Students were protesting just 2 years ago for the administration's lack of action on racism. A culture of racism doesn't miraculously disappear in 2 years. Also, let's not deny that Queen's has a systemic problem, and holds a reputation for being white and elitist. It's not just "some" students who've been implicated, faculty members' racism have been publicized as well. I can only imagine how many more profs and students are only "subtly racist", but not racist enough for those affected to make a formal complaint about it. *after thought* I don't mean to suggest Queen's Med students are perpetuators of the systemic problem because, as we know, most of us go to which ever med school accepts us. But I think recognizing the problems of one's new community and trying to be part of the solution is an important part of being a good physician. If not for compelling moral reasons - at least for your CV and CaRMs sake. lol.

To be honest - a lot of the pay gap in medicine is a cultural/systemic problem. There isn't one problem that is only exclusive to medicine and fixable. Solutions I can think of on the top of my head: 1) Training in medicine. The residency training was modelled for men who had the time to work/study relentless hours while their wife would raise their children and be a home maker. This isn't the case any more. We also have students entering residency older than previous. If we want to give everyone the opportunity to pursue what they want, programs could look at changing the structure of residency to reduce the work demand, be more flexible, in exchange for a longer training period. 2) Change the culture in how we view women and men who take on the parental role. Truth be told, even for clinician scientists, there are some departments within institutions that don't value them. Clinicians in these departments don't find it fair that part of their earnings are given to a clinician scientists who do "less work" than they do. This mentality suggests that the countless hours put into research by clinician scientists are insignificant. This mentality is similar to those who want to be active parents as well as physicians: you are solely liable for figuring out how to balance career and family. We need to appreciate the hours our colleagues are putting into parenting. This could be through a higher base salary for those who work part time, but it could also be as simple as allowing more flexible work schedules. 3) Transparency in income. In the recent years, this has been becoming less and less of a problem in all fields. Even in medicine for those paid FFS, you can ensure women are getting paid the same per procedure/consult as men do. However, there are still areas where salaries are involved when women are low-balled in the negotiation table. In Iceland it's now illegal to pay women less than men. Employers are allowed to adjust pay based on work experience, performance and other aspects, but they have to prove it's not lower based on gender. It's a new law and carefully observed of the outcomes. If something like this was enforced for hospital networks or academic institutions paying physicians salaries, it may be one solution. These are just thoughts on the top of my head, but I'm sure there are economists and labour policy experts that thought through this and have way better suggestions.

1) You are assuming that women and female medical students freely choose work life-style friendly specialties and work less hours for themselves, without external influences/pressure. Many of the reasons for choosing life-style friendly specialties and working less hours is because they feel pressured to be the flexible one who can care for children/maintain a family - in the present or in the future. Women are at many times pressured to work less and therefore be paid less because of the responsibility that society put on them. 2) Just because women aren't locked out of these field, does not mean that it is just as easy for them to enter into these field as it is to enter the nursing profession or obgyn. 3) Women don't simply "tend to have different priorities", they grew up in a society where they are told their priorities are different from a man. In the 50's, it may have been about being a good mother and housewife. Today, society is more accepting of women entering STEM field, but only under the condition that it doesn't affect her ability to rear children and take care of their families. 4) We need to consider the reasons these women are working part-time and more men aren't working part-time. I never suggested women shouldn't work part time. What I'm trying to say is that many times, they work part-time because they also have to balance their full-time job as a mom and home maker. We already address this problem in a similar context of clinician scientists, who can't take on as much clinical duties because they also do research. Departments will often pool a small proportion of billings from staff who are clinicians and use this as salaries for clinician scientists to help offset their disproportionate incomes. Even with this, clinician-scientists earn less than the sole clinicians, but the gap is somewhat reduced. This also happens in departments that value research and care for the work their clinician-scientist colleagues do. 5) You don't recognize that there ISN'T equality of opportunities because you aren't a woman going through medical school, or practicing medicine. This is an article by CMAJ that explores why we don't have more women in leadership positions medicine, when there have been more females entering medicine than males in 1995, and consistently more in the last decade: https://cmajnews.com/2018/03/26/rise-of-women-in-medicine-not-matched-by-leadership-roles-cmaj-109-5567/ 6) I agree women nor man should be shamed for valuing family over career, but women are shamed for valuing career equally to their families. When men take more time for their families and decide to work less, they are seen as being a good husband and a good partner. When women take more time for their careers and less for their families, they are viewed as a less competent parent, and not welcomed in their leadership positions. Read the article by CMAJ above. 7) I never protested for equality in the # of women in individual specialties. I agree that entering specific fields such as Urology and Orthopedics is much easier for women in 2018 than it was back in 1980. But that doesn't mean that there's an even playing field. There are faculty who still believe that women shouldn't go into surgery, and there are faculty who are hesitant accepting female residents who are married or engaged and may choose to become pregnant during their residency/training.

I've gone through each of your citations, to point out how your sweeping generalization are misleading or very circumstantial. You also have not proved that women out earn men in medicine. And here's me throwing it back at you: find me a billing code where women are paid higher per consult, per procedure than men. You have shown that: Many citations refer to the same study that states women earn more than men when they are: younger, single, and more educated than men in metropolitan cities in the US This trend disappears when they are 30 or early 30's. One of your sources states that a woman with 4 or more years of experience receive a salary 5% less than men A sociological studies has theorized that women face tremendous societal pressure to not make males feel emasculated, and therefore take on more housework. According to a one study, men are more likely to cheat on women when they are financially dependent on them. Men and women may share the same billing code, but that doesn't mean that it socially acceptable for them to work the same hours. Women still feel the societal pressure and pressures within heterosexual relationships to fulfill their gender roles as a mother and a home maker. This impacts the number of women in leadership positions or "more demanding" medical subspecialties because they feel that it would further impact their abilities to raise children. Heterosexual men don't face these pressures or demands. If we have come to realize and accept that there are barriers to health beyond "exact distance to nearest GP clinic/grocery store/hospital" (i.e. social determinants of health), we should also recognize that there are social determinants that negatively impact one's income.

Woah. I think you're greatly misinformed. First of all, gender pay gap is well and alive. I don't know what sources you're citing when you suggest women out earn men, but that is not the case in medicine, or in Canada. A state-by-state breakdown of the striking gender gap in doctors’ pay: https://www.statnews.com/2017/04/26/gender-pay-gap-medicine/ Sex Differences in Physician Sex Differences in Physician Salary in US Public Medical Schools: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2532788 Canada's Gender Pay Gap: Why Canadian Women Still Earn Less Than Men https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/03/08/canada-gender-pay-gap_n_9393924.html Second of all, I never stated that this only applied to marrying a woman. I clearly stated that whoever a physician decides to marry, MAN or WOMAN, has the option to not work if they don't want too. This doesn't only apply to raising kids, or mean that they would become trophy husbands/wives (although that is an extreme possibility). Even as a guy, marrying a physician (male or female) gives you financial stability so that you can: Decide to go back to school if you want to - i.e. change professions, pursue a master's, PhD Quit you current position to look for a better one - won't have to worry about rent, food, and living expenses. Don't have to work crazy hours at any job to save for a nice family vacation, for a downpayment on a house, or to eat at a nice restaurant There are so many adults who wish they had the luxury to do these things when they want too, without having to worry about $$$. Many simply can't because they may have just bought a house with their partner, or they just had a new born with their partner, or they need the income their current crap position provides. So is a partner's occupation the primary reason for ending up with someone? No (exception - gold diggers). Being a physician in North America, regardless of gender and specialty, means you have an enormous earning potential. You can work the average hours and have a very comfortable living for your family OR you can also work additional hours and earn into the millions. Most specialties in medicine can be made lucrative if you wanted it to be.

Or you could just work like crazy, bill like a fiend, and invest your money.

lol we're in a profession where we earn the top 1% of income in this country. Whoever we marry (man or woman) don't have to worry about working a day in their life, if they didn't want too. We could afford to have a nanny, a nice house, a cottage and they still wouldn't have to work. That's how much our earning potential is.

Unfortunately, can't say this is the first time I'm hearing about racism at Queen's: http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2015-02-27/features/racism-alive-subtle-queens/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/costume-party-highlights-racism-at-queens-university-critics-say/article32996051/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/queens-professors-demand-apology-from-university-for-colleague-accused-of-racist-sexist-remarks/article4803798/

I agree. I need people to describe what they do in their bio or list their current occupation, so that I can judge whether I can see a serious relationship with them. We aren't in a 9-5 field where we can go on dates every night of the week. We have very little free time, and we need to use it wisely. Trying to judge whether someone is good material for a serious relationship/long-term is hard when you only have their appearance to judge by. In addition to knowing they are a dog person and love board games, I need to know what they do for a living. It's nice knowing what kind of field they are in because you get a preliminary sense of how you'd get along.

I think it's easy to say that you could have studied/practiced/anything "a little more" for anything. I could point you toward even bigger hoards of people who "failed" to be musicians, actors, or professional athletes and they'll give you the same excuse. I could have spent "a little more" time training and became a professional athlete. I could have spent "a little more" time rehearsing for the audition, I could have spent "a little more" time rehearsing for the gig. That "a little more" excuse is just as easy to say as the "I wish I studied/worked/practiced less" excuse. Let's not pretend it's exclusive to medicine. TL;DR - Hindsight is 20/20.

Yes they do. Interviews and admissions decisions for MD/PhD must be made before MD interviews & admission decisions

Hey OP, A great majority of med students, residents, fellows, and practicing physicians will tell you that they themselves wished they studied less and enjoyed life more in every stage of training. You're only in undergrad as a 18-22 year old once. Undergrad as a mature student is whole different experience, so you really have to cherish the present. Making real, genuine friends become more difficult as you get older! I think the key is acknowledging that a social life and academics are NOT mutually exclusive. You can have a social life in academics, and academics can be an aspect of social life. For instance, you can make friends with people who have the same ambitions as you do and plan fun study dates/pot lucks. Even having another person across the table from you, studying, makes you feel less lonely. And you will inevitably have bits of side conversations and get closer to each other. These friends can be found in tutorials/lab, in your EC's, and in your home (i.e. roommates). That's just one personal example - Get creative!

Just to clarify, the quality of an individual article is not subjective. You can conduct two educational randomized controlled trials, with the same sample size and have one be filled with bias and the other conducted methodologically robust (and it goes beyond blinding). Same thing with survey studies and questionnaires. There's a science and methodology behind good questionnaires and surveys. It's easy for med students, residents and even staff to not know how a sound questionnaire is constructed. The majority of med students, residents, and staff do research as a hobby that they learned on the side from their mentors, but good researchers are formally trained in doing research - just like formal training to practice medicine. Research is also like a surgical procedure or differential diagnosis - most physicians don't do enough of it to be truly adept at it. Whether the program directors and residency selection committee fully understand what good quality studies look like is a whole other story. Studies published in a high-impact journal are not "high quality". Prime example: Vaccine-autism study published in The Lancet back in 1998.

Hello! A question just popped up into my mind that I wanted to ask, but forgot to during Dr. Walker's post-MMI presentation. He explained that a way that UofC shines is that it stays on the frontier of innovation and that Calgary's curriculum incorporates ultrasonography (US) into their undergraduate medical education (UME). For those that are near the end of their clerkship, or have experienced the full extent of the US education in UME, can you elaborate how extensive the training is, and how helpful it is in giving clerks an "edge" during their electives? For example, I understand that knowing how to work with US is pretty advantageous for specialties like anesthesia where they use US constantly to insert art lines and IJ central lines in the OR/ICU. Thank you!

Ohhhhh, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that clarification!