About three years ago, attending a women’s empowerment conference made me swear off of going to anymore women’s empowerment conferences…a 🧵
It began as a great conference focused on empowering women to advance in medicine. All the gaps were addressed. Gender pay gap, research funding gap, awards gap, leadership gap. Great! We’re moving beyond pay disparity!
Jan 9, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Friends of #MedTwitter
We talk a lot about the dearth of Black docs & the leaky pipeline but not how academia pushes out the ones who actually make it to med school & beyond. Many URiM students/trainees suffer in silence due to a lack of support & the real threat of retaliation.
We’re working with a resident who is the only Black trainee &one of two IMGs who is experiencing an extremely hostile work environment. We’re looking for program directors, assoc program directors & anyone else who can help us in assisting this trainee.
Jan 29, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
For my chief year grand rounds presentation, a mentor suggested that I use it as an opportunity to share my experience going through surgery training and having children. He suggested I share both the good the bad.
I loved this idea. It felt like we would be doing an M&M conference on our lived experiences as humans going through professional and personal challenges. I liked the idea that what was seen as a “problem” (pregnant surgery resident)...
When we say minoritized and racialized people in medicine, regardless of position, are afraid to speak up because of #retaliation,
👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾 is what we mean.
Academia will destroy someone’s career and livelihood before they even think about becoming introspective or take any responsibility for their bias and racism.
I got a call from one of our NPs that a neurosurgeon was berating him and the icu nurses about why his postop patient was in the icu. He brought one to tears and was yelling at the charge as well. So I called.
Nsg: Who the hell transferred my postop pt to the ICU?
Me: I did.
Nsg: Who gave you permission to transfer my patient?
Me: I’m the admitting physician. You’re a consultant. Are you aware of their other injuries?
Dec 6, 2020 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
The toxic culture of surgery...
The story of two attendings. One we’ll call Toxic and the other Nice.
Toxic is your typical surgery bro with a god complex.
Nice is a good surgeon and a patient teacher.
I was on call with Nice when Toxic came to sign out to us on the patient he just operated on. He shared his plans and some labs to follow up on.
Sep 22, 2020 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
“We were going to ask you to take off your hijab.”
I was made aware of this idea at the end of my term at one of the institutions I trained in. Timeline ranges from 2004-2015.
This was the conclusion reached after a faculty meeting.
A FACULTY MEETING‼️
I wasn’t told the thought process behind this ask or who brought up the idea.
I was simply told that my hijab could be “a potential problem.”
For who? 🤷🏾♀️
But lucky for them, there was someone in the room who knew better and told them the potential consequences of this ask.
Sep 4, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
#antiracism work in #Med needs to progress beyond statements, shows of solidarity, and hashtags (all performance).
It requires having difficult conversations and facing harsh truths. It requires taking action.
If you’re not getting uncomfortable, you’re doing it wrong.
I’m going to keep reposting this thread on a conversation I was invited to host.
Look at the non-engagement.
People are not ready move out of their comfort zone.
We keep getting distracted with more performance.
More bandwagon jumping on the fad that is now “antiracism”
Sep 2, 2020 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Does it have to take a national movement against racism for the discrimination BIPOC women face in medicine to be taken seriously?
Does it have to take a national movement for “all these disparities women face in the workplace are worse for intersectional women” to move from a one-liner in #DEI work to the forefront and for #SystemicRacism to be relevant in the women in medicine movement?
We’re all busy and can get annoyed by inappropriate consults. Surgery consults that are specialty specific coming to acute care surgery or trauma.
But do we ever pause and put ourselves in our consulting physician’s shoes?
When someone calls you to ask for help, they’re stuck. They’re not sure what the next step is and they’re calling you for guidance.
For us, it maybe as simple as saying call the other specialty service who handles this problem better or suggesting the next set of tests to order.
Aug 22, 2020 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Good morning everyone!
It’s the one year anniversary of our Professional Muslim Women podcast!!
We’ve been so lucky to create this platform and share our stories to inspire the next generation of Muslim women.
I value my time greatly, as I’m sure everyone does.
But we also have to realize the double standards we impose on women, especially Black women.
We create a hostile environment and when they thrive despite that environment, what do we do?
Aug 19, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Ok Twitter fam... it’s here!!!
I took a couple of days to recuperate from call but it’s finally here! I’m so excited to share with you all that the #takeupspace masterclass is confirmed for September 26, 2020!
So what is the #takeupspace masterclass?
In this class we will delve into some important questions and provide tangible solutions to dealing with #systemicracism
How do we pursue dreams denied to us by society?
Aug 11, 2020 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Where do you pray at work?
I’ve been thinking about this FAQ a lot lately. I recently instinctively answered it with my call room/office of course. But then I realized that wasn’t always the case.
One of our interns this year is Muslim. I casually told him I was going upstairs to pray and his eyes lit up.
“How, where do you do that?”
This is when I realized that my prayers were one of the things I had to sacrifice in the past.
Aug 11, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
“As long as the culture discouraged asking for help, didn’t fully value those who focus on innovative diversity education, and failed to provide sufficient support to minority faculty, I would never feel truly safe.” -@kdc_md aamc.org/news-insights/…
I love to teach and have always thought I’d end up in academics. But having trained in an academic center and experiencing constant devaluation and abuse, I’ve made the conscious decision to not practice in an academic setting.
Aug 8, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Good morning everyone! I hope you all are having a great start to your weekend.
A couple of things re: yesterday’s tweets on parenting and surgery.
I normally try not to engage trolls on Twitter or people who are being provocative or rude.
However, I think it’s important to engage some questions in order to have an open discussion and bring to light what many women are told behind closed doors.
What I wanted to point out by engaging in the question of “who’s raising” my kids is boundaries.
Aug 8, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The best thing I learned while having kids in residency is time management. Nothing teaches you to get your act together than being responsible for little humans.
So, I made use of every down-time. I got my books, articles on pdf, and Q-banks on my phone. And I read at work!
I read in between cases. I did Q-banks whenever I could. In my 3rd yr, I started stopping by a coffee shop for 30mins-1 hr to study before going home. And when I made it home, it was family time. Unless I was on home call and had to answer pages, time @ home was for family.
Aug 4, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Vascular surgery: showing activism, bikinis, alcohol on social media is unprofessional.
Cardiology:
It’s 2020 and we’re asking for peer-reviewed blatant racist papers to be retracted 🤦🏾♀️
While this publication is about posting bikini pictures among other things on SoMe, what doesn’t get published, yet has a huge impact, is the other ways medicine polices women’s attire.
