Letter to a Young Female Physician

March 1, 2021
Graceful reflections on being a female doctor by a longtime primary care physician. Koven, a Harvard Medical School faculty member and writer-in-residence at Massachusetts General Hospital, builds on the tradition of Richard Selzer's Letters to a Young Doctor in a collection of personal essays, some published in the New England Journal of Medicine. As a medical student, the author learned that a senior doctor saw her presence on a urology rotation as "pointless" because "no self-respecting man would go to a lady urologist," and sexism persists in her profession: Female physicians earn $20,000 per year less than their male peers, hold fewer leadership positions, and face sexual harassment ranging from "bro" humor in operating rooms to abuse severe enough to cause some women to switch careers. Yet this book is no rant against a field Koven clearly enjoys. Writing without rancor and with self-deprecating humor, the author debunks myths (it's untrue that nurses dislike female doctors--"nurses were, in fact, especially supportive of us new women MDs") and suggests how she has avoided such perils as burnout (she began working part time when her children were young and didn't expand her practice as they grew). She also ably describes how her work affected her care for her parents and her childbearing years (she spent part of her first pregnancy at home with preeclampsia, "my dangerously high blood pressure no doubt caused by my long work hours") and why she volunteered to help in a Covid-19 clinic. Less effectively, she argues that a female doctor faces an obstacle "more insidious" than sexism: the fear that she's a fraud, or "imposter syndrome," a pop-psych term that may strike some readers as glib or anti-feminist in its implication that self-doubt could be worse than sexual abuse or being denied raises or promotions. Nonetheless, Koven's down-to-earth message is likely to win over skeptics, as she learned "that I can only be who I am. And that this is OK." A fine graduation present for a newly minted female M.D.

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April 1, 2021
In this collection of funny, touching, and self-deprecating essays, physician Koven covers extensive ground: being a doctor's daughter, becoming a doctor and a mom, dealing with family health issues, experiencing sexism in her profession, and coping with the impostor syndrome. It's easy to root for likable, modest Koven, who, despite all her accomplishments--majoring in English literature at Yale, going to medical school at Johns Hopkins, joining the faculty at Harvard Medical School--worries about things like her weight and her natural chattiness. She loves listening to the people she treats. "I find my patients much more interesting than their diseases." On the job during the AIDS epidemic and now facing the COVID-19 pandemic, Koven declares that the day she graduated from medical school was the happiest day of her life. Her mom told her, "Don't waste your life." This thought-provoking and inspiring memoir, which began as a series of letters to a friend and an avidly read 2017 essay with the same title in the New England Journalism of Medicine, makes it clear she heeds that good advice.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 9, 2021

Following in the path of Richard Selzer's Letters to a Young Doctor and Perri Klass's Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters to a Young Doctor, Koven, a primary care physician (and daughter of another physician) who teaches at Harvard Medical School and is a writer-in-residence at the Massachusetts General Hospital, directs her book's thoughtful and honest essays to women entering medicine and flags some of the challenges they may face in a demanding field. Drawing inspiration from Selzer, as well as from her father's medical career, Koven recounts what drew her to medicine and the obstacles she faced along the way, including enduring misogyny at the hands of fellow students. Her debut covers imposter syndrome (doctors' doubting their own intelligence or ability), discrimination, harassment, pay inequity, and work-life balance (working while pregnant, or while caring for elderly parents). Young doctors-to-be face many challenges; some are gender-specific, but Koven's most important advice (which patients and their loved ones might also appreciate) is gender-neutral: "My dear young colleague, you are not a fraud." The author also touches on her own privilege and discusses the medical racism that her Black colleagues regularly endure. VERDICT A candid account that will spark the interest of aspiring physicians.--Marcia G. Welsh, former with Dartmouth Coll. Lib., Hanover, NH

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