Operating in the margins: Women's lived experience of training and working in orthopaedic surgery in South Africa

Medicine in South Africa (SA), as in other parts of the world, is becoming an increasingly gender diverse profession, yet orthopaedic surgery continues to be dominated by men, with women constituting approximately 5% of the profession in SA. The aim of this descriptive qualitative study was to explo...

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Published inQualitative research in medicine & healthcare Vol. 7; no. 1; p. 10902
Main Authors Thiart, Mari, O'Connor, Megan, Müller, Jana, Holland, Nuhaa, Bantjes, Jason
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Italy PAGEPress Publications, Pavia, Italy 27.04.2023
PAGEPress Publications
Subjects
Diversity
medical training
orthopaedic surgery
South Africa
women
medical training
South Africa
orthopaedic surgery
Diversity
women
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Summary:Medicine in South Africa (SA), as in other parts of the world, is becoming an increasingly gender diverse profession, yet orthopaedic surgery continues to be dominated by men, with women constituting approximately 5% of the profession in SA. The aim of this descriptive qualitative study was to explore women's experiences of training and working as orthopaedic surgeons in SA and identify structures, practices, attitudes, and ideologies that may promote or impede the inclusion of women. Data were collected via focus group discussions with women orthopaedic surgeons (n=16). Grounded in phenomenology, data were analysed using thematic analysis following a data-driven inductive approach to making sense of participants' experiences. Five main themes emerged: i) dynamic working environments and the work of transformation; ii) negotiating competing roles of mother and surgeon; iii) belonging, exclusion and internalised sexism; iv) gaslighting and silencing; and v) acts of resistance - agency and pushing back. The findings highlight the dynamic process in which both men and women contribute to co-creating, re-producing, and challenging practices that make medicine more inclusive.
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Contributions: MT, MOC, JB conceptualised the study. NH and JM conducted data analysis. All authors were involved in data interpretation and preparation of the final manuscript.
Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained prior to data collection. Availability of data: Availability of data and datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Ethics approval: Ethical clearance for the study was obtained from the Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee at Stellenbosch University (N21/06/054).
Publisher’s note: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Conflict of interest: The authors confirm that there are no conflicts to declare.
ISSN:2532-2044
2532-2044
DOI:10.4081/qrmh.2023.10902