Anatomy of a meme
What started as a magazine cover illustration has sparked an online call to arms (surely scalpels) among female surgeons worldwide
The images are striking: Female surgeons, in surgical caps and masks, peering down from above, their eyes piercing and full of pride.
What started as a magazine cover — an illustration of an all-female surgical team rendered in beautiful blues — has since turned into a rallying cry for women surgeons from around the world, from France to Kenya, Newfoundland to Texas, and now Toronto.
Every day since The New Yorker posted the April 3 cover for its Health, Medicine & The Body Issue, female surgeons have gathered in operating rooms to recreate the illustration, snapping photos and posting them online with the hashtag #ILookLikeASurgeon.
At first, the photos came from the U.S. after Dr. Susan Pitt, a surgeon from Wisconsin, challenged her peers to replicate the magazine cover. Soon after, photos taken by surgeons from operating rooms in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, among others, were shared on social media.
Now surgeons from Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital are joining the movement, wanting to rise up with their peers from around the globe to show that women are strong and capable leaders — the equals of men — in the operating room. “Seeing myself on the cover of The New
Yorker as something normative is amazing,” said Dr. Nancy Baxter, chief of general surgery at St. Michael’s Hospital, who plans to pose for a photo in her hospital’s OR on Friday morning.
On Thursday, her colleagues in general and plastic surgery reproduced The New
Yorker cover, posting the photograph on Twitter with the hashtag #NYerORCoverChallenge, the alternate label for the online movement.
On Wednesday, Dr. Carmine Simone, chief of surgery at Michael Garron Hospital, part of the Toronto East Health Network, shared on Twitter a photo of four female surgeons, including Dr. Laura Tate, who in 2001 became the hospital’s first female chief of surgery. Baxter, who plans to frame The New Yorker cover, said there have been only a handful of times in recent years when all the medical staff at a particular time in an OR at St. Michael’s Hospital were women.
“We pause for a moment and take note,” she says. “It’s a tremendous change from when I started out in medicine.”
Malika Favre, the French artist who created the illustration, entitled Operating Theatre, did not expect the reaction.
In an email to the Star, Favre, who is based in London, England, said her idea for came from “my own experience of having an eye operation as a child.”
“I wanted to create an image that everyone has seen and can relate to, which was that moment before going to sleep on the operating table,” Favre said. “My surgeon was a woman back then so I also decided to celebrate that and create a sort of homage piece to her and other women surgeons.”
Pitt, an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Wisconsin, said it was the colours and bold imagery of The New
Yorker cover that first caught her eye. On second look, she realized the cover depicted an all-women surgical team.
“It was a bit of a shock. It is so completely foreign that someone would show only women,” she says, during a phone call with the Star. “It’s so against the standard gender bias.”
Pitt, 39, immediately took a photo with colleagues that mimicked the cover and posted it on Twitter. After seeing responses from a few female surgeons, Pitt issued a challenge for her peers to follow.
At first, the response was slow. Then, after about a week, the posts took off.
Now, more than a thousand photos of female surgeons are circulating on Twitter, Pitt said. She would know; she has personally responded to each image, hoping to keep the excitement building.
“I think what we are all trying to say is: ‘This is what women surgeons look like. Here we are. See us.’ This is not just a novelty on the cover of a magazine.
“It has been amazing to see this camaraderie amongst women surgeons from around the globe.”
Favre said she finds it empowering to see so many photos replicating her illustration on social media.
“For some it raised the questions of gender bias, diversity and equal pay in the medical world and for others it was simply the opportunity to celebrate all these incredible women.”
Dr. Molly Zirkle, a surgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital and assistant professor of surgery at the University of Toronto, , said female surgeons are a growing population and not as unique in operating rooms as they were in the 1970s or 1980s.
“We have benefited from the legacy of those who came (before) us,” says Zirkle, 49, who posed for a photo with peers at St. Michael’s Hospital on Thursday.
“I think what we are all trying to say is: ‘This is what women surgeons look like. Here we are. See us.’ This is not just a novelty on the cover of a magazine. It has been amazing to see this camaraderie amongst women surgeons from around the globe.” DR. SUSAN PITT WISCONSIN SURGEON WHO STARTED THE #I LOOK LIKE -A SURGEON MOVEMENT