What Should a Doctor Look Like?

Abstract

I scrutinize myself in the mirror for countless hours. White coat or not? Dress or pants? Less makeup? More makeup? Glasses? A badge emblazoned with “DOCTOR” in large white all-caps on a red background?! I’ve tried every permutation in an attempt to garner respect in the workplace; I guess I’m just not what a doctor looks like. As a young woman of color in medicine, I feel unexceptional for my multitude of experiences on the receiving end of racism and sexism—and I am hardly alone. I face incidents with such predictability that my colleague coined the term “daily microaggression.” One a day keeps the doctor dismayed. As an Asian woman, racism and sexism are intimately intertwined experiences. I recall the innumerable comments since childhood, mocking my name and my eyes. Naively, I hoped perhaps becoming a working professional would lessen the incidents over time, and that my workplace would be a sanctuary of respect. How can my appearance as a young Asian woman—so ubiquitous in medicine and the world—induce so many invisible scars, yet impart such palpable insecurity? The erosion of confidence is pervasive. It begins: I don’t look like a doctor; it becomes: I don’t feel like one, either. The inescapable. Numerous patients informed me they like “exotic” and “Oriental” girls. As a medical student, an older male patient suggestively inquired, “Would your parents allow you to date someone not Oriental?” In residency, a patient declared, “There’s something special about Asian women,” and proceeded to list some “special” traits. My ex-favorite Spanish interpreter divulged how he “loved everything about Asia and Asians” and said he “always wanted Asian babies.” On the fellowship interview trail, I received benevolent advice that three other young Asian women and I all “share superficial characteristics and should find ways to distinguish ourselves,” and accordingly we ought to “wear our nametags prominently” and coordinate “different hairstyles”—a double-edged sword that implied faculty could not otherwise tell us apart. The world through a racialized lens. When I struggled to understand thick American regional accents, patients speculated whether I knew English (I’m from the mid-Atlantic). Strength is not always in numbers; while caring for a patient alongside two Asian male colleagues, he called us “Chinamen.” People frequently challenge “where I’m really from” and assert howmuch I look exactly like so-and-so other Asian person. A patient queried my “nationality” (perhaps he meant ethnicity) but guessed before I could answer. I’ve been told my one-syllable last name is “unusual,” “difficult to pronounce,” and that there are “just so many variations” of Asian names. The violation of bodily autonomy, the crossing of boundaries. The patient who stroked my hair. The medical school classmate who grabbed my butt at a party; the co-resident who did the same. The co-resident who I rebuffed for a kiss five times in one night—because the first “no” was not enough. The university that shamed a respected Asian woman physician for taking maternity leave twice as junior faculty—even when she worked from her laptop in L&D during both deliveries. The program director and countless interviewers who asked when I was getting married, when I was having children. The patients who moan sounds of pleasure while being physically examined. The patients who supersede my medical assessment to ask if I have a “honeybun.” The employee in the cafeteria line who deemed me “cute in my blue scrubs,” then stalked me around the hospital despite my increasingly visible discomfort. He interrupted me in rare moments of peace when I dared to sit in public spaces. At least I have “great legs.” The incessant sexualization, infantilization, or both. A patient who proclaimed that I’m too pretty to be a doctor, as if they were mutually exclusive attainments. A patient announced that I gave him “pretty-itis”—in front of his wife—I was mortified and mostly offended on her behalf. While shaking a patient’s hand, he commented on my “beautiful slender hands” and pondered aloud why there wasn’t a ring on my left hand. (There is now, but it hasn’t been a protective factor). I’m a “girl,” “honey,” or “doll” nearly as often as I am a “doctor.” When I was catcalled “sexy doctor” while wearing scrubs at a bus stop, my first instinct was pleasant surprise that the man believed I could be a physician! He knows what a doctor looks like! The diminishing of my accomplishments. I was interrogated at the light rail station about whether I “like wearing scrubs for leisure” after leaving a leisurely 30-hour shift at the hospital. When I was called “Miss” after clearly introducing myself Received May 9, 2021 Accepted May 20, 2021 Published online June 25, 2021