Doubted and disrespected: These doctors face a double disadvantage вебкам екатеринбург работа

In May last year, a distressed couple took their newborn to see Dr. Anjani Bala. Their baby, delivered in a small clinic nearby, was having severe difficulty breathing and their obstetrician had referred them to Bala for help.

But as the pediatrician walked towards the infant, the parents noticed her heavy limp and the metal calipers supporting the doctor’s legs. Bala recalled what happened next:

“Will you be able to treat our child?” the father asked Bala skeptically, staring at her leg, then he turned to his wife and asked: “Should we go to that male doctor nearby?”

“Try me once,” she told the parents at her practice in Daltonganj, in eastern India. “I know what the problem is and promise that with my treatment your baby will improve in 24 hours.”

The baby did make a full recovery – and its parents decided that day that “Daltonganj waali madam” (the madam from Daltonganj) would be the pediatrician for all their future children – but Bala said experiences like this, where patients doubt her expertise because of her disability, are common. Some, the doctor said, tell her upfront. Others stare and whisper, or simply walk away to look for a physician with no physical impairment, preferably a man.

“Often, they enter my (office) and ask: ‘Sister, where is doctor sahab (a male doctor)?’” Bala says. Female nurses in India are referred to as “sisters” and sahab is “sir” in Hindi.

“Unfortunately, our society still cannot perceive a physician to be disabled,” said Dr. Satendra Singh, head of Doctors with Disabilities: Agents of Change, a group bringing disabled physicians from across India together. According to Singh many in India continue to have the view that if someone doesn’t have a perfect body, how can they be a healer?