Navigating the surgical backlogs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic will require changes to the healthcare system and its systemic sexism. As pointed out in the CTVNews article “Gender bias against female surgeons fuelling surgical backlogs”, gender biases influencing referrals to female surgeons may be contributing to the long wait-times that patients are having to face when confronted with a surgical procedure. Referral biases are not just occurring with females, but are also occurring with practitioners of colour, LGBTQ2S+, and new graduates. Kristyn Guglielmin, a Master of Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization student at McMaster University joins me for a conversation highlighting gender biases in the medical practice of surgery and possible solutions to the surgical backlogs that may be a result of this issue.

Music by Stan Forebee