When East Jefferson General Hospital opened in 1971, the number one television program in America was Marcus Welby, M.D. For those of you too young to remember the show, Marcus Welby, as played by Robert Young, was kind, caring and wise. He embodied the quintessential physician. If you scanned the dial in those days, you would come across a great many TV doctors ranging from Chad Everett on Medical Center to Richard Chamberlain as Dr. Kildare. All played compassionate physicians and all were most assuredly male. The women on those TV shows played nurses, love interests or, in some cases both. In the world of Network TV, women simply didn’t become doctors. It was pretty much the same way out here in the real world.

Women were not encouraged to enter medicine as a career and in some cases, were actively discouraged. Those who did enter medical school were steered towards less “manly” specialties or areas where they would predominantly treat female patients. To look at the current state of medicine, the pendulum has most definantly swung. Today, female applicants to medical school now outnumber male applicants. Each day, female doctors are coming to the fore across the entire spectrum of medical specialties. There are still a few bastions of male domination but those are vanishing day-by-day if not minute-by-minute.

One such bastion had been Gastroentorology, the study of the diseases and pathology of the stomach and intestines. Gastroentorolgists must always look at both medicinal and surgical solutions. It is this complexity that attracted Elizabeth McDonald when it was time for her to declare a specialty. During a recent conversation, she recalled the exact moment she knew she had found her medical calling. It was 2 a.m. and she was a young intern with a patient who was too weak to withstand the surgery that may save his life. Working late deducing the non-surgical solutions that could save his life required the perfect combination of technical training and creative thinking. She knew this was what she wanted to do with the rest of her professional life.

Speaking with her now, nearly twenty years later, Dr. McDonald says she has never regretted her choice of specialties. In fact, her passion for her work shone through during every minute of our recent conversation. When you first meet Dr. McDonald, her demeanor quickly puts you at ease. Bright, calm, confident and warm; she is exactly the kind of person you want on your side when dealing with life threatening matters.

Though she is quick to point out she never saw her career in pure gender terms, Dr. McDonald does recall that early in her career, more often than not, she was the only female at most meetings. Today, as women physicians have become commonplace, she recognizes that new physicians, and the current generation of recent graduates, have grown up in a world where glass ceilings are disappearing every day. These women enter their careers with the belief that their gender will play a small role if any.

Any questions that may have once existed about women’s “suitability” towards medicine have long since been answered. Around EJGH and throughout the nation, female physicians are making tremendous strides.  In 1975, only 9.1 of all physicians were women. Dr. McDonald feels her sensibilities as a woman have helped make her a more patient physician, a better listener and a more effective doctor overall. She tries hard to connect to her patients on a very personal level. When asked if there was a moment she realized how far women had come in the medical profession in such a short time, Dr. McDonald at first said no, then recalled a brief hallway conference with three other physicians. One of the doctors in the meeting suddenly stopped mid-sentence, looked at the other three and realized that he was the only male among four physicians. He too realized just how much things have changed in a relatively short period of time.

To those of us on the patient side of the medical equation, this new equality can only be seen as a good thing. When I, or someone I love is sick, I want to know they are being treated by the best-trained, most dedicated person our schools and hospitals can develop. I want that person to come from the largest talent pool possible. Then, male or female, I can be confident in the care being delivered.

Mary Lobrano, MD Dr. Lobrano has accomplished a great deal already in a career that only began in 1994. She is Radiology Department Chair with a reputation for excellence. When asked for her perspective on life as a female physician and as a clinical leader, she pointed out that she has never felt her gender has been an issue in her career. Radiology is still a specialty attracting very few women, but Dr. Lobrano said you can’t help but notice the speed at which these changes are occurring. When she first arrived at EJGH, there were very few female physicians and now, physician gender seems to have become a non-issue. She is impressed at how, within just one generation, we have seen women break through to a point where today, like all physicians, she feels she is judged purely on performance and results which is, “as it should be.”

Frannie Kronenberg, MD, MSC Dr. Kronenberg is EJGH Sr. Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. As both an M.D. and an administrator she holds a unique perspective on the growth of women in the medical profession. She believes two themes should resonate with any woman considering a career in medicine: opportunity and responsibility. Dr. Kronenberg explained, “The opportunities available to women today are nearly limitless.” These opportunities weren’t there before, and they have been won through great determination and efforts from those who came before. As for responsibilities, Dr. Kronenberg believes each new physician has a responsibility to be a mentor to both young men and women. As the granddaughter of immigrants, Dr. Kronenberg was raised in an environment where each generation judges itself on whether they were able to provide the following generation with a quality of life and education at least slightly better than their own. A correlation can easily be made for her belief that each generation of female physicians has an obligation to make things better for all those physicians following in their footsteps.

Jane Gurtler, MD Dr. Gurtler is an oncologist at EJGH working on the leading edge of experimental cancer treatments. On a recent afternoon, I met two of her patients, each of whom had not responded to traditional therapies. Under Dr. Gurtler’s supervision, each woman received experimental medicines as part of a clinical study and both have now been in remission for more than a year. Obviously, a doctor who can provide these types of results is seen as a bit of a miracle worker by her patients. She was not always seen that way. Coming out of medical school in 1974, she was, by her own description, a very small woman who looked even younger than she was. It was not an image that instilled unquestioned confidence. However, she quickly was able to overcome these small obstacles and let her work speak for itself. Today, Dr. Gurtler is still a small woman who looks much younger than she is. She points out that she has never been a victim of any gender based prejudice. In fact, she told me, “I have never, in my career, been discriminated against. If anything, I have been discriminated for.” She can point to several instances where male colleagues went out of their way to show kindness and support as she built her practice.