BECCA TUSKA

The presence of women in STEM has slowly risen to an admirable level however, women still only make up 28% of the workforce in STEM fields. Similarly, the representation of women in the medical field, while increasing, still provides conflicting evidence to suggest misogyny within the field. As an aspiring student hoping to become a female physician in a male dominant field, I seek to portray the perception of women in healthcare through a societal lens by highlighting role-conflict, work-life balance, misogyny, and the doubts about female professionalism that occur in the day-to-day lives of female physicians. Recently I have been exploring what society has held as the “physician standard” for decades. What deviations do we see from this standard, and how has the “physician type” changed over the years? Through hyper realistic oil painting, I have been able to portray this deviation of types and how they are and will continue to evolve.

Ever since I was a young teenager I knew I wanted to pursue a career in medicine, but it wasn’t until recently that I was faced with the reality of entering a line of work that perceives women as a separate entity from men. As I sought to overcome my anxieties about my future while applying to medical school last summer, I found myself ruminating more and more about what I will become instead of what I am. I started to make graphite drawings detailing the “imposter syndrome” I was living through. Through drawing, I was able to reassess my motivation for pursuing this career while simultaneously relieving some of my stress and anxieties about applying to medical school. These drawings soon evolved into oil paintings and figural sculptures depicting various themes that I felt contributed to my feelings of self-doubt. My current body of work displays a year-long exploration of new mediums at the forefront of my perception and experience as a woman in STEM. Ultimately, my work comes together as both a statement to the current perceptions of female physicians in the field but also as a reminder to myself of all that I have and will accomplish.