Department of Biomedicine, Neurosciences, and Advanced Diagnostics, Institute of Neurosurgery, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy; Department of Neurosurgery, Highly Specialized Hospital and of National Importance "Garibaldi", Catania, Italy.
Department of Biomedicine, Neurosciences, and Advanced Diagnostics, Institute of Neurosurgery, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
World Neurosurg. 2021 Apr;148:129-135. doi: 10.1016/j.wneu.2021.01.049. Epub 2021 Jan 28.
Medicine has made progress toward gender equality and has achieved almost equal distribution between men and women among graduates. However, more still needs to be done because most surgical subspecialties are still lacking adequate female representation and this persisting gender gap is particularly evident in both practical neurosurgery and the academic world. Gradual advancements have enabled a few women to pursue a successful career in neurologic surgery, pairing clinical practice with mentoring and involvement in academic research. These efforts show that more needs to be done to bridge the historic and current gap, which has recently aroused increasing interest among the neurosurgical community through internationally relevant studies. In neurosurgical societies worldwide, the existence of gender-related issues and women-reserved sections has started to attract attention and recognition on how to properly address this issue among present and future neurosurgeons.
In this study, we discuss the timeline of women's road to gaining their place in neurosurgery, inspired by Hippocrates' motto "Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future." Although neurosurgery had been traditionally considered too difficult a subject in which to engage, the first female neurosurgeons challenged themselves in this field, previously reserved only for men, at a time when society was not yet ready to embrace women's presence. Their successes paved the way for future generations of women, progressively shedding light on complex themes such as peer considerations, difficulty in reaching academic positions, and work-life balance.
Our aim is to analyze the historic reasons for inequality among men and women, which might be found in the themes of personal choice and willingness, aside from cultural bias or stereotypically based thinking.
Accordingly, if the difference in numbers were considered a reality related to personal inclination, perhaps, nobody would pay attention to this topic and the presence of even a few women in neurosurgery would be considered less strange. By thinking along those lines on a daily basis, we could all simply write about the history of valuable neurosurgeons in the past, present, and future without any distinction between men and women.
医学在性别平等方面取得了进展，毕业生中男女比例几乎持平。然而，仍有许多工作要做，因为大多数外科亚专业仍然缺乏足够的女性代表，这种持续存在的性别差距在实践神经外科和学术界尤为明显。逐渐的进步使少数女性能够在神经外科领域取得成功的职业生涯，将临床实践与指导和参与学术研究相结合。这些努力表明，需要做更多的工作来弥合历史和当前的差距，最近通过相关的国际研究，引起了神经外科学界的越来越多的关注。在全球各地的神经外科学会中，与性别相关的问题和女性保留部分开始引起关注，并认识到如何在现任和未来的神经外科医生中妥善解决这个问题。
在这项研究中，我们受希波克拉底格言“宣告过去，诊断现在，预测未来”的启发，讨论了女性在神经外科领域获得一席之地的时间线。尽管神经外科传统上被认为是一个太难的学科，以至于无法参与，但第一批女性神经外科医生在这个以前只留给男性的领域挑战自我，当时社会还没有准备好接受女性的存在。她们的成功为后来的女性铺平了道路，逐步揭示了一些复杂的主题，如同行的考虑、难以获得学术职位以及工作与生活的平衡。
我们的目的是分析男性和女性之间不平等的历史原因，这些原因可能存在于个人选择和意愿的主题中，除了文化偏见或基于刻板印象的思维之外。
因此，如果人数的差异被认为是与个人倾向有关的现实，也许没有人会关注这个话题，神经外科中少数女性的存在也不会被认为那么奇怪。如果我们每天都这样思考，我们就可以在不区分男女的情况下，简单地撰写过去、现在和未来有价值的神经外科医生的历史。
