Featuring Nwando Olayiwola and Elisabeth Poorman
Our society is coming to a reckoning with how we treat women, and medicine has it’s own reckoning too. This week, we have two guests: Nwando Olayiwola, a family physician, corporate leader, researcher, and author; and Elisabeth Poorman, an internist, speaker, and writer.
First, we’ll speak with Dr. Poorman about an article she published in The Guardian about the challenges that women physicians face. We also discuss a paper published by Mark Linzer and Eileen Harwood in JGIM on what particular challenges women face in practicing medicine owing to different expectations of male and female physicians; and the importance of understanding and distinguishing sympathy, empathy, and compassion.
Then, we’ll talk with Dr. Olayiwola about an organization she started, Society for Women Minority Professionals, to respond to the specific challenges that she and other minority professional women face. We also talk about imposter syndrome, a feeling so many qualified and successful women can identify with, recently written about in NEJM by Dr. Suzanne Koven. Lastly, Dr. Olayiwola shares with us some experiences of discrimination she experienced in her life and wrote about in her new book, Papaya Head.
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