Yo estoy...: Estoy capitán de W.O.W.

Monday, August 3, 2020

Estoy capitán de W.O.W.

W.O.W. was started my first year of residency as a prelim intern, by the female chiefs that year Irlna and Alison, 50% of our program was female that year. Women Of Westchester was designed as a support for female surgical residents and has remained in place since that first year. In the seven years since its initiation, not all years have been as successful as others, mainly due to the female chiefs of any given year. Some were more invested, and others not so much.

I see the benefit of a group like W.O.W. and have advocated for its continuance especially during those dry years when there were no female hires and female chiefs more interested in... other things.... than creating an environment of support and camaraderie.

Now W.O.W. falls into my lap, and I quickly realized that supporting W.O.W. and encouraging others to plan events is so much easier than doing the actual planning myself.

Living in a dirty study apartment where there is no more than a pair of folding chairs to sit on and every inch of table/counter space is buried under stacks of papers, articles and books filled my head with a plethora of reasons of how I could not possibly host a W.O.W. event myself.

So I had to first get over those excuses, warn everyone that we would be sitting on the floor, and then do a more thorough job of cleaning than, well, I don't really want to know since when.

Unfortunately, the day of, in the middle of scrubbing my apartment, I got a message that one of our ladies had been asked last minute to cover at the hospital. Despite trying to find an alternative option, we were unable to do so, meaning that we could not all be together. But 7 out of 8 is pretty good at least. We all sat on the floor and played games, ate food, and made plans for the year. Successful first W.O.W. meeting of the year!