Then I Broke An Old Lady’s Zygomatic Process

….okay not really, but if I wasn’t anti-oldladypunching I would have. It’s probably a good thing I hold this stance on using my fists to show 70 year old women what I think, otherwise there’s a good chance I would have earned myself a nice new set of silver bracelets yesterday afternoon (and this blog post probably would’ve been titled very differently – ex. “How I Got Kicked Out Of Medical School”).


Anyway, let’s start at the beginning. During my 12 minute drive (that is a long drive for this town) to school yesterday I had some time to think. Naturally I was thinking, “How can I bore these gullible people who read my blog just a wee bit more today.” I decided I would write about how, when people ask what I’m doing with my life and I tell them I’m in medical school, the most common response I hear is “Oh, to be a nurse?

Now, let’s get this straight right now, I have nothing against nurses. In fact, my mom is a nurse and she’s pretty dang awesome. And my sister-in-law is a nurse and she is almost as awesome as my mom. I just think it’s….strange….that I get asked this so often. I did some very formal research asking around at school and have conclusively discovered that my male counterparts have never had this response, but many of the other females in our class hear the same question often. I guess all I really mean is that a stereotype still exists that girls are nurses and boys are doctors. I won’t get into how absolutely eff-ing ridiculous this is based on the amount of male nurses and female doctors I’ve worked with, but it’s obviously something people still believe, whether they hold that belief on a conscious or unconscious level I have no idea.

So, really this post was supposed to be to brag on how cool I thought it was that the last three people who asked what I’m in school for have responded with “Oh, to be a doctor?” before wondering about any other medical profession.

But, then I put on my new jacket I purchased from the Ob/Gyn club’s fundraiser and went to the home improvement store (don’t get me started on the irony of that) to make a return.

New Jacket                    
The lady doing my return looked straight at the logo on my snazzy new jacket (which has the name of my school on it) and said “Oh what’s your major?” but, before I even had time to explain she blurted out “Or does that jacket belong to your husband?”
Excuse me? Does it…..um….what?

-glance around for store security

consider jumping across counter and using caulking tube as weapon-

“Uhh….ummm….no….NO actually it’s mine” was all I could get out.

So, normally I can pass the “Oh, to be a nurse?” off as maybe they don’t know that ‘Medical School’ is not actually some all-inclusive term for learning about anything remotely related to health care. I can understand that, everyone doesn’t know someone in nursing school or PT school or medical school and they might not understand that they are different.

But, this one….there was no mistaking her subconscious stereotyping.

She was either saying “You look like you wear men’s clothing.” or “There’s no possible way you are actually in medical school, that MUST belong to your (apparently very tiny) husband.”