In June, 1990, the New York State Journal of Medicine was subtitled "Women as Physicians, Women as Patients." Contents ranged from an interview with [then-] Dean of Albany Medical College Nancy E. Gary, to "Primary female syndromes: an update" (Ellen Yaukauskas, MD), reviewing "female troubles," from premenstrual syndrome to chronic pelvic pain. In the following months [and years], the issue sank without a ripple. Did no one else see its irony? As women in medicine, we are caught short of the physician role, still seen as objects to be studied ourselves.

Though articles on female physicians and their special place in the medical community are fascinating (indeed, have been the subject of other "throwaway journals" such as Pallas Athena), should we automatically write about female doctors and patients in the same issue, speak of them in the same breath? Imagine the New York State Journal issue titled: "Men as Physicians, Men as Patients." The absurdity and redundancy of the title is obvious: both titles are male-inclusive. Are women excluded from the category of physician, the category of patient, or both?

In the Journal of the Medical Women's Association, the "mainstream" medical women's journal, articles on women's bodies also keep company with articles on female doctor's minds. In the July/August, 1990 issue, "Perimenopausal Bleeding Patterns and Pathologic Findings," by Selzer et al. immediately follows "Implications of Pregnancy for Residents and Their Training Programs" by Harris et al. Is it usual to link "female problems" with female doctors' problems? Why are female problems limited to problems of uteri, breasts, and fertility/reproduction, not other systems?

JAMWA is a women's association journal intended for a female audience, and I believe that its readers understand that work on many subjects of interest to women(whether personal or professional) is being grouped together. JAMWA does not seek to define the role of women in medicine: a positive view of female health care providers is assumed, and emphasized by the effort and expense of producing the journal itself.

The New York State Journal of Medicine, however, is aimed at physicians of both genders. In printing articles on "female diseases" beside articles on the professional progress of female physicians, it makes an uncomfortable, ambiguous editorial commentary on the role of women in medicine. Naomi Bluestone, MD, MPH, [then] Consulting Editor of the New York State Journal and Special Editor of the issue, writes in her introduction about "the issues of women physicians, and, inevitably, the women who are pleased to seek them out as personal physicians." Why does uterus, breast and reproductive pathology follow "inevitably" on articles about female deans? What is Bluestone saying about female patient preference for female physicians, a subject not explored in the issue? Bluestone continues by discussing many of the areas, academic, personal and political, in which female physicians are gaining ground, and writes that her issue "represent[s] an eclectic mix of...issues which have been of concern to women and their patients." Does she imply that she believes her audience is mostly or exclusively female?

Perhaps the most telling evidence that women are intentionally presented in a nonprofessional capacity comes in the last paragraph of Bluestone's introduction. She acknowledges the help of two female physicians, who contributed "despite two successful pregnancies and happy deliveries." Her willingness to disclose this personal (reproductive) information strengthens the impression that she is speaking "woman to woman." Perhaps the issue would have been better titled: "Special to Female Physicians."

Earlier in her introduction, Bluestone paraphrases Dr. Carola Eisenberg: "all physicians [should] accept that women are no longer guests but now hosts and co-owners of the establishment." Male physicians reading the June issue of the New York State Journal must have had doubts about this. Could they share their field with women, who "inevitably," even to their professional colleagues, can be reduced to their childbearing, fertility, breasts, uteri? Among ourselves, female physicians agree on the importance of our role; should we not be careful and aware of how we present it to our male colleagues, how fragile our position as professionals may be? Perhaps then we can retitle the problem of "Women as Physicians; Women as Patients"....The Problem of Gender Inequality in Medicine.

[Gentle reader: the functional brain images on the main page are, deliberately, female brains, the most important organ in a woman's body as far as I am concerned....but then, I'm biased.]