When you’re hiring a tough to fill role, it is essential to be honest about the struggles you’ll face in it. Ascend Medical does an excellent job of explaining what is difficult in this job as a hospitalist in Bullhead City, Arizona. “I would say our physicians get called 2 to 3 times a night but don’t always have to come back.”
That’s useful information to have and makes for a good job description. But the description goes off the rails with this bit of information: “Women don’t do well here.”
I contacted Ascend Medical and asked why women don’t do well. They didn’t answer that question but did respond with this message:
To keep reading, click here: Job Description: “Women don’t do well here.”
Hiring managers may well not know employment law. But, one would — at the least — expect them to have a little common sense, which appears to be totally missing from their ad. However, that may be a blessing. Their utter cluelessness may have resulted in an ad accurately identifying their workplace as a hostile environment for women, which is a good thing for any aspiring job applicant — regardless of gender — to know.
Your point, Suzanne, that, if several women have tried and failed, the problem is the job, not the women, is excellent.
My elderly father-in-law is a retired physician and over the years he’s made several remarks that women don’t like to take calls — that they want 8-5 jobs so they can be home with children. My response is that men doctors feel the same way, so maybe the profession is due for an overhaul. Maybe doctors need more regular hours. Maybe primary care physicians should be more plentiful so the work is spread out more thinly. Maybe $300k is an appropriate yearly salary rather than $600k.
That was part of the impetus behind the concept of hospitalists — that a single (or a few) doctors are on call at night so numerous doctors are less likely to be called out.
We’ve already commodified medical care. This is another step in that direction.
I am guessing that this could have occurred in part out of laziness. I also work in healthcare. Cutting and pasting text has become common. People do not read what they propagate from one email or record to the next.
That being said, someone in that organization has this attitude. I am also guessing that it is someone far enough up the management chain who would be involved with hiring. I agree 100% that it is probably a problem with the job and is a red flag for a toxic work environment. It says to me: Management is detached, lacks attention to detail, and does not accept feedback from staff. Has chauvinistic outdated attitudes on the role staff has in successful execution of the organization’s mission. Expect to be marginalized.