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President’s Letter

Let Us Now Praise Women Physicians

By Stephen J. Ezzo, MD

T his time of year always fills me with a certain amount faculty/professor/attending taking them under their wing and
of nostalgia (because these letters are written a few revealing to them the beauty of their discipline. (Note: This
months before publication, I am referring to July), as usually is not true for surgeons, as they seem to be born and not
my thoughts flash back to the first day of internship made.) For me, it was two of my attendings in pediatrics.
year. What invariably hits me first is not so much a memory as
Ellen Wood, MD, was my attending on the third-year inpatient
a calculation — it is now 32 years since that day. Where has the pediatrics rotation. She fit the stereotype of a pediatrician
— kind, gentle, soft-spoken — who treated everyone on her
time gone? team with equanimity. What she excelled at was teaching her
residents and students how crucial critical thinking was. When
While my recollections are not as clear (and probably are presenting evaluation and treatment plans, there was neither
rubber-stamping nor expedient alternative options until we
altered) after all these years, a few things stand true. I started on had explained our rationale, including the consequences of our
plans, as well as what we had considered and rejected. I also
July 1 in the NICU at then Charlotte Memorial Hospital (CMH). enjoyed the way she stood up to her (mostly male) colleagues,
demonstrating that just because pediatricians care for little ones
In those days, there were not enough neonatologists to cover 24/7, doesn’t mean we are pushovers. There was one area, however,
where Dr. Wood failed. Despite her best efforts, she never could
so a second- or third- teach me to understand nephrology.

“The idea of winning year pediatric resident Susan Heaney, MD, ran the pediatric outpatient clinic, where
a doctor’s degree “ran” the NICU with I did a fourth-year rotation. This was the month I was going to
gradually assumed the a team of three to four decide whether or not to pursue pediatrics, having just come off
aspect of a great moral interns. My second- a month of family medicine. (Years later, I cannot conceive of
struggle, and the moral year resident was being a family medicine physician and having to measure up
fight possessed immense someone who exuded to my wife.) I’m not sure I ever told Dr. Heaney this, but I am
attraction for me.” more confidence and guessing she probably sensed it. Under her guidance, I learned
self-assurance than I the joys of interacting one-on-one with patients, the inviolate
ever could. Up to that privacy of the exam room, and the reassurance I could convey to
point, I had a grand patients and their families even in the briefest of encounters. It no
total of two weeks of longer was a question of if I would choose pediatrics, but rather
where I would train. (I was fortunate years later to visit with Dr.
— Elizabeth Blackwell, MD, NICU experience at Heaney at a reunion and did not miss the chance to tell her how
— first woman to receive a medical City Hospital in St. grateful I was to her for taking an interest in me.)
— degree in the United States Louis, where interns
mutely followed the When I came to CMH, I believe I was the first pediatric
resident from west of Atlanta. (I tell myself, and anyone else
attending around. All who cares to listen, that I led the charge from a regional program
to a national one.) Unsure of which faculty member to assign
I could grasp was that I had never seen a baby that small, or a to advise this interloper, Valya Visser, MD, volunteered for the
challenge, based on her similar Midwestern roots.
stethoscope either, for that matter.
There are times in life when someone is placed in your path
I knew the CMH NICU was on the fourth floor, the ED on the who causes you to believe in predestination, divine intervention,
or both. Dr. Visser was such a person for me. Residency, though
first, and not much else. At one point, we were called to the ED for stimulating, was not easy. Part of the problem was going
through residency at the same time as my wife, leading to many
a delivery, which happened more often than not. In the midst of months when one or the other of us was on in-house call up to
four to five days a week. Not the wisest of stresses to place on a
arranging transfer to the nursery, I got separated from my senior young marriage.

resident. I did not know my way back to the NICU and had visions Dr. Visser was more than an adviser and teacher — she was a
friend. As part of a dual MD marriage herself, she understood
of wandering the halls trying to act like I knew what I was doing. what I was experiencing, and her counsel reflected this. She knew

Fortunately, he soon turned up to collect me.

Once I finish recalling what a rube I was, I am on to

remembering the long strange journey that has been my medical

career, as well as those along the path who have been the most

influential. And while my father was, and still is, a great role

model, the fact is, the physicians who influenced me the most

were women.

Upon entering medical school, I had very few definitive plans.

Part of me thought I would go into internal medicine, come

back home to join my father and, eventually, assume the entire

practice when he retired. But one of the things I discovered in

medical school that has been reinforced over the years, is for

many students the specialty they choose is a direct result of a

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