Letter to a Young Female Physician: Thoughts on Life and Work

ISBN: 132402190X

Author: Koven, Suzanne

Condition: New

"A warm and wry epistle, the endless and near-perfect email you wish your mother, your mentor and your therapist would sit down and type out together." -Laura Kolbe, Wall Street JournalIn 2017, Dr. Suzanne Koven published an essay describing the challenges faced by female physicians, including her own personal struggle with "imposter syndrome"-a long-held secret belief that she was not smart enough or good enough to be a real doctor. Accessed by thousands of readers around the world, Kovens Letter to a Young Female Physician has evolved into a deeply felt reflection on her career in medicine.Koven tells candid and illuminating stories about her pregnancy during a grueling residency in the AIDS era; the illnesses of her child and aging parents during which her roles as a doctor, mother, and daughter converged, and sometimes collided; the sexism, pay inequity, and harassment that women in medicine encounter; and the twilight of her career during the COVID-19 pandemic. As she traces the arc of her life, Koven finds inspiration in literature and faces the near-universal challenges of burnout, body image, and balancing work with marriage and parenthood.Shining with warmth, clarity, and wisdom, Letter to a Young Female Physician reveals a woman forging her authentic identity in a modern landscape that is as overwhelming and confusing as it is exhilarating in its possibilities. Koven offers an indelible account, by turns humorous and profound, from a doctor, mother, wife, daughter, teacher, and writer who sheds light on our desire to find meaning, and on a way to be our own imperfect selves in the world.