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Ann Thorac Surg 2001;71:S8-S13
© 2001 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

"The XX files": demographics of women cardiothoracic surgeons

^a Department of Surgery, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Address reprint requests to Dr Hartz, Department of Surgery, Tulane University, 1430 Tulane Ave, SL22, New Orleans, LA 70112
e-mail: rhartzmd@aol.com

Presented at the Women in Thoracic Surgery Symposium, Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Jan 31, 2000.

I hope to have a little fun with this talk and would first like to voice my appreciation for being a token women on a female symposium for the very first time. Second, to provide you with the thoughts of women cardiothoracic (CT) surgeons themselves (I was able to interview almost 90% of American Board of Thoracic Surgery [ABTS]-certified women by phone or by questionnaire) I will intersperse many of their direct comments (unattributed) throughout the presentation. Thus, the data itself will be supplemented by additional, perhaps just as powerful, subliminal messages.

It’s nice to showcase the women but have we really done much? Few women advance in cardiac surgery in a meaningful way ... some progress in thoracic ... academic progress unacceptable, and women have not been properly prepared for the politics.

Yesterday Carolyn E. Reed gave a wonderful summary of women in thoracic surgery at the postgraduate course [1]. She virtually set my talk up by saying that the "last 500 years have really been an aberration, and one can foresee a resurgence of the role women will play in the future." Certainly, when one analyzes the activities of this small group of women, our activities can easily be construed as not only "aberrant" but also as somewhat "paranormal." I have thus elected to model this presentation after the television series "The X Files." Since XX equals 20 we occasionally joke that we are better than the average "10," but on a more serious note we are still an extremely insignificant group in the overall scheme of women physicians, and even of women in surgery over the last 500 years.

To put ourselves into the larger perspective we must scrutinize this 500-year period more closely. In medieval times, a 1341 papal edict forbade women to practice medicine . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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