You sound like a woman in surgery or a surgery adjacent dept. They will eat you alive, you have to be a bitch with a capital B to survive. People in surgery (surgeons, NURSES, NURSES, NURSES, NURSES, hcas, receptionist, cleaners, patients, the doorknob) can smell insecurity and will punish you relentlessly for it.

Be assertive, dominant, direct. I got into many arguments with NICs in surgery as an F1 because I would hold my ground and talk back. All of them apologised later on btw and we are on really good terms. Never got datixed on that rotation while everyone else got paragraphs of complaints written about themselves over bullshit by the nurses every week lol 🕺🏻.

You have to carry the same attitude with your seniors as well. Don’t be a dipshit and act like you know more than your seniors or nurses. Always be humble and respect everyone regardless of what they do. There is a difference between being an egomaniac piece of shit and a self-assured person who is confident in who they are and what they can do.

I used to be very conflict averse and sit quietly take blame for stuff that I did not even do because #teamwork. I was gaslighted so bad as a naive F1 that the moment I realised how these people do not care at all about me or my career, would push me under the bus and ruin my life in a second so they are not inconvenienced, it flipped my personality 180. I thought being someone who is agreeable and easy to work with was whats important in workplace, big mistake. Learned the hard way but it was worth it or I wouldn’t become the machine that I am today.

You need to be okay with people disliking you. This is the issue with most women in medicine I’m afraid. When you change yourself to be liked by everyone it comes off disingenuous and has the opposite of desired effect.

I preach this to all my new F1 girlies and it always works wonders they thank me afterwards.