Dr. Tiffany Anthony (Source: Ivanhoe Newswire)
DALLAS (Ivanhoe Newswire/WTVM) — The number of men and women entering medical school these days is about evenly split. However, women make up less than 20 percent of the surgeons in this country. Smart women like Tiffany Anthony, MD, Liver, Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Surgeon at Baylor Scott and White Hospital in Dallas, are changing that.
Dr. Anthony is one busy surgeon. She’s one of only about 50 female transplant surgeons in the world; she only gets four days off a month and she’s on call most of the time.
“Medicine was a man’s world for a long time and surgery was the last holdout,” Dr. Anthony says. “There are quite a few women surgeons coming up in training now, but traditionally it was sort of the last thing probably because it was a lifestyle thing.”
Dr. Anthony specializes in transplants, working with donors and recipients.
Becoming a transplant surgeon demands lifestyle choices, including 12 years of medical school and surgical training, large student debt and for women, often times sacrificing prime child-bearing years.
“You’re a nice lady and surgery will change your personality,” Dr. Anthony explains. “I made a promise to myself that if I went through surgical training, I wouldn’t allow it to change who I am, and I hope that I haven’t.”
But don’t call her soft.
“Nobody would ever label me that,” Dr. Anthony says.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the total number of applicants to medical school is up at a time when the nation faces a shortage of more than 90,000 doctors by the end of the decade.
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