Physicians are not immune from prejudging each other. When prejudice is ethnic and racial, it is manifest in our first impression without any knowledge about the individual in question. If prejudice is about political or religious beliefs, we at least have to come to know an individual and may then not discriminate. When it involves women, the issues are very complex. The women's suffrage and subsequent liberation movement had some of its major roots in the antislavery movement of the last century. Today, stereotyped beliefs tell more about the bearer of the attitude than about the persons who are objects of the prejudice.

When I was CEO of a group, I thought we had the professional stature and financial resources to add women and minority physicians without serious consequences from elements of our profession or our patients. I made the acquaintance of an African American physician working at a VA hospital who had recently completed his fellowship. After spending a few hours with him, I felt he would fit in well with our group. I was unable to accomplish this feat. Rejection resulted from fear of losing referral sources.

I then met a woman physician in our specialty at a national conference who was finishing her fellowship and was married to an attorney. Her husband took a temporary salaried job until his wife found a position with a group. Thereafter, he would seek employment with a law firm in the city she chose. When I began informal discussions on the matter, a partner let it be known that his wife would not let him continue in our group if there was a woman physician member. This proposal, obviously, never got to a vote, much less a discussion of the medical, social, and apparent sexual issues.

The emancipation proclamation of January 1863 did not change basic human beliefs and stereotypes. The liberation of women over recent decades may not have significantly changed basic opinions many of us hold. Equality or total acceptance was not produced in either case. The former became obvious when a college friend, a black professional, was a guest in my home for a couple of weeks recently. People that normally stopped and conversed, passed by "on the other side."

Although women physicians posed a threat to some of us or our spouses, women in nursing, allied health, and medical clerical positions did not. There was some anecdotal evidence that women in advanced degree roles as Nurse Practitioners, or Nurse Clinical Specialists were viewed as a threat. As these roles grew, physicians formed and supported a competing, largely male dominated undergraduate allied health field known as Physician Assistants.

Professional prejudice continues to need exposure, discussion, and reflection in order to get these issues out in the open so they can be addressed. Greater understanding and tolerance might be the result. We hope this issue of the Journal begins the high lighting of Women in Medicine, the Challenges of Women in Medicine, and produces a dialogue on Women's Issues in Medicine.