Chapter 50: A girl and forty-nine boys 2
Ren Chongda waved his hand and said, “You shouldn’t be laughing like this. She is the first female surgical dical student in the history of our Guoxie Eight-Year Program. Of course, she’s also the only girl in our class. She’s our class’s little princess. What are you laughing at her for? You are knights, gentlen, you should be protecting the little princess.”
The male students continued to laugh as they responded to Ren Chongda’s words, “Yes, we understand, Teacher Ren.”
Little princess?
Did they think this was a title worthy of pride and joy?
This situation was no different than a male preschool teacher being treated like a monkey among a group of female preschool teachers.
Zhou Ruoi, my aunt’s sister-in-law, was certainly right about one thing: the dical community is predominantly male, much like the situation with male nurses and female nurses, male preschool teachers, and female preschool teachers. This is especially true in the surgical field, where female doctors are scarce except in gynecology. No wonder Ren Chongda declared her the ‘first female surgical dical student in history.’
So-called little princess – was it a term of endearnt or praise? No, it carried an undertone of gender discrimination within this field. A woman in surgery isn’t good enough, will never outdo the n, so they might as well coddle you as a little princess since you don’t have the strength to be anything else.
After all, what little princess is ant to do the work? None; they’re ant to be shown off. This even aligned with my uncle-in-law Ding Yuhai’s words: recruiting a female surgeon is just for show, for publicity; male surgeons and hospital leaders don’t expect female surgeons to do the work.
Xie Wanying, reborn, was well aware of this situation in the industry and was thus not surprised. It was just that previously, she hadn’t realized that besides surgery, no other girls were recruited for any other disciplines in this year’s Eight-Year Program.
Ren Chongda was now briefing the class about the Eight-Year Program on the podium, saying, “Among you, there are ten in surgery, twenty in internal dicine, and twenty in miscellaneous other disciplines, including the basic sciences and dical auxiliary departnts. Each discipline recruits only a few people since everyone was an elite in high school. In our class, there are two science gold dalists; there isn’t a single student ranked beyond the top hundred in their province in science. However, the school encourages interaction, so by tradition, you are all placed in one class for ease of managent and to prevent feelings of isolation. Compared to other colleges, the Eight-Year Program has fewer students, but that’s what happens when it’s all a group of academic elites.”
Despite the male instructor being a bit cool and seemingly indifferent, he turned out to be sowhat verbose, and a group of students began to understand why he was nicknad Instructor Ren. The Instructor loved to ramble, after all.
Yet, Ren Chongda’s familiarity with the Eight-Year Program and ability to articulate these details revealed the depth of his understanding, since he himself was one of the lonely elite graduates from the Eight-Year Program.
“At the beginning of the school year, your senior brothers were too busy to et you at the admissions office, for which they feel deeply apologetic. Let apologize on their behalf, but later, when you start your clinical rotations, your senior brothers will surely compensate you adequately. As for your senior sisters, there are only a few of them, including our class’s little princess here; theirs is the toughest path.”
Hearing Ren Chongda’s last words, Xie Wanying could sense that this instructor and senior brother was indeed a gentleman who understood the hardships female doctors face in this industry. It seed she could call her mother later and reassure her that the instructor was quite decent.
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