One of the greatest regrets of my father’s life was that he didn’t go to college. Orphaned by the time he was fifteen years of age, he had to work to support himself from a young age. He told me over and over again as I was growing up: “You have to go to college and you have to win a scholarship, because I can’t afford to pay the tuition.” A devout Catholic, he also worshipped priests and doctors. Since I didn’t have a prayer of becoming a priest, I decided while I was in high school that I would become a doctor. This was almost unheard of in the 1950’s and ‘60’s.
The Doctor Broad
I won a scholarship to attend Barnard College, the women’s college of Columbia University, in New York. I worried that my grades would not be good enough. I knew that even with good grades women faced discrimination in medical school admissions which today would be unthinkable, not to mention illegal.
The Women’s Movement was still several years in the future. With rare exceptions, no medical school class was more than ten per cent female. Only the very top female applicants won admission, and then only if they convinced the admissions committee that they were not going to drop out to marry and have children. Having announced to all and sundry that I was going to be a doctor I felt enormous pressure to achieve this goal.
I gradually learned that the typical pre-med student was either pitied if she was plain - the feeling being that she was only becoming a physician because she would never snare a husband - or not taken seriously if she was attractive - the supposition being that she would ultimately drop out to MARRY a doctor, not BECOME one. The pre-med curriculum was considered so difficult that at freshman parent’s weekend a professor jokingly told the assembled mothers and fathers not to worry, that by the end of freshman year two thirds of the pre-med students would have changed their minds and chosen a less onerous career path. But I persisted on my chosen path, and obtained good grades.
During the autumn of 1963, I went on several medical school interviews. I borrowed a camel’s hair suit from a friend who was much shorter than I. This showed off my legs to great advantage but I acted serious and demure with male interviewers. They posed questions which are now illegal, such as “Are you married?” and “Do you plan to have children?” I was not a conscious feminist so although I dimly resented these questions, I accepted as a matter of course that they would be asked and that I would have to answer. I felt I was walking a tightrope between appearing to be too feminine or too masculine, either of which would alienate the interviewer and prejudice him against me. I tried to appear attractive but not “too” attractive. The whole process felt demeaning.
I’d applied to Columbia Physicians and Surgeons which was notorious for being difficult to get into, especially for women. My fiancé, a famous quarterback on the Columbia University football team, was assured a place there if and when he applied and I resented the fact that I had little chance of being accepted myself despite my having better marks than his. In fact, I was never even invited for an interview. But after the Christmas break, I received a letter of acceptance from New York University School of Medicine. I was overjoyed that my long-time dream of becoming a doctor was a giant step closer to reality.
In future years, I would be the second woman accepted into my internship program, the first woman accepted into my cardiology fellowship, and the first woman to practice adult cardiology in the state of Rhode Island.
But the outlook for women in medicine has improved – many medical school classes have 50% or more female students.
Barbara H. Roberts, MD
Author, The Doctor Broad: A Mafia Love Story
How To Keep From Breaking Your Heart: What Every Woman Needs To Know About Cardiovascular Disease
The Truth About Statins.