Dr Juliet Bressan takles the sexism inherant in the Medical Profession

IN Medicine Weekly, Dr Bressan counteracts a disgracefully patronising and inherently sexist article which appeared in Medicine Weekly, claiming that ‘lady’ doctors only seem to want to buy expensive shoes and dont want to work hard. This kind of disgusting attitude makes for uncomfortable reading – that this kind of attack on women who have worked so hard to achieve financial independence and to reduce this to mere flight of fancy driven by one Jimmy Choo… churns the stomach. However, Dr Bressan’s response reduces the arguement to exactly what it should have been read as: the musings of a sexist, bigoted asshole.

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Medicine Weekly’s Dr Juliet Bressan agrees with Dr Ruairi Hanley — life is certainly a cakewalk when you’re a female GP

Dr Ruairi Hanley is upset about the fact that there are now far too many female graduates who don’t want to have to work too hard and like to buy nice shoes: ‘Doctors who choose lifestyle ahead of vocation’ (Medicine Weekly, 16 April 2008).

Which is perfectly understandable. Why wouldn’t you be in an absolute tizz if you’d spent your whole life thinking that you are nothing short of a complete saint by taking up a job like this, only to find that all the others have gone home early to put a nice roast on for their husbands and have their Jimmy Choo boots licked? I agree completely with Ruairi: life is very unfair if you have been left short of one X chromosome. Lady doctors do have all the fun.

But it’s the points system that is to blame. It foolishly selects the most intelligent and gifted school-leavers to study medicine, rather than the ones with the largest number of penises. The CAO, by insisting on cherry-picking all the clever people to become doctors, are only asking for a medical profession full of women.

There I was the other day, driving through the leafy suburbs of D4 thinking ‘will I bother going into work today, or will I just go shoe-shopping instead?’ And then I remembered that the patients might be sick. So, I popped into the surgery and listened to one or two chests, which was such a bore, really, but you’ve got to do it sometimes, only I make sure they don’t lift their jumpers up or anything disgusting like that.

And then I had to tell the rest of them to just go to casualty because I’d snagged a nail taking my stethoscope out of my Birken Bag (PS. Ruairi, Louis Vuitton is sooooo footballers’ wives. Do keep up!)

So, I made an emergency call to my manicurist — thank goodness he’s a man with a work ethic — and then I noticed that I’d got a text message on my iPhone from my yoga instructor to remind me to do my Asanas, so I took the rest of the afternoon off.

Oh, and I won’t be at the CME next week because that’s the day I’m having a Brazilian. See, it is much harder for boy doctors to think of nice ways to spend the day. Boy doctors don’t know why they went into medical school in the first place. They sit all day grumbling in a nasty suit at a filthy desk wondering where it all went wrong, and then they take it out on the patients.

Meanwhile, lady doctors are sitting in the Shelbourne having a nice glass of white wine at 4.30pm, wondering whether the new shade of Juicy Tube is going to look better with their theatre scrubs than last year’s one did. But it’s not too late to figure out how to enjoy a career in medicine; lots of boy doctors do it. They just keep a little bit quieter about it, perhaps.

You could, for example, develop an addiction. This is very time consuming, and keeps you out of the surgery for months on end in rehab, having a lovely time at the expense of the HSE. Alcohol is a very easily available and acceptable substance among boy doctors looking for a way to pass the time, and all your colleagues will be terribly nice to you when you’ve had far too much of it and you drive your car into something.

Or, you could have an affair with someone else’s wife. This takes up a huge amount of time (especially if the other wife is married to another boy doctor, because you can spend hours agonising in guilt, which is the best part of adultery) and you’ll be able to buy your wife guilt presents of nice shoes too, which is almost as much fun as being a lady doctor and buying lots of nice shoes for yourself.

Or, you could spend all day flirting with the pharmaceutical rep and getting her to buy you huge lunches that you can ill afford to eat with your expanding waistline, but at least you’ll feel you’re getting some attention. Or, you could buy a ridiculously expensive car and drive it very very fast to the AGM.

Or, you could become obsessed with the GAA/rugby matches. Lots of boy doctors find that thinking about other men getting all muddy and stuff is the subject of a truly massive amount of scintillating conversation.

And why not? Men in shorts rolling around in the mud — what’s not to like?

The IMO will even put little notes in their annual diary when all the matches are on, so you’ve got something to do for a weekend in Dublin when your lady doctor wife is busy dashing around from one cocktail party to the next.

Or, you could develop an interest in antiques. Second- hand furniture full of wood worm is a charming way to pass the time when you’ve already done the crossword and fiddled about on the golf course in the rain for half the day.

Look, it doesn’t have to be all misery just because you aren’t a woman. I was thinking of doing a PhD myself the other day — but then I realised that I was just thirsty.