Just be yourself.
As a woman in cardiology, this is not so straightforward. Women have to constantly balance the dichotomy of warmth and competence. If you are warm, you are seen as less competent. If you are assertive, you are viewed as cold. How then, can you just be yourself?
I am a Black woman, a mother, and a cardiology fellow. Throughout my training, I have faced many challenges including sexism, racism, and prejudice in many forms. I also became a mother during an intensive part of my medical training. I resumed work in the intensive care unit 6 weeks post partum. This experience created layers of perspective for me and ironically, the challenges of being a new mother made the challenges of being a trainee seem less insurmountable. However, it also created another dimension of identity that I had to navigate.