Sarah: Katherine is a 60-year-old woman who has experienced some extremely difficult situations. Twenty-five years ago, finding women surgeons in operating rooms was out of the question, and I think that explains a great deal about her character. She is a very demanding and tough woman. She is much more demanding than women usually are in this field, which is an increasingly feminized and therefore increasingly devalued profession. So no, in this situation, I don't think a man would deal with the department differently at all.

Jane: Surgeons are very authoritarian by nature. Katherine has a keen eye and she doesn't let any details slip by. For me, she is mostly the head of the department. I think of her job title, not her sexual identity. She is genderless. She belongs to a different generation of doctors than Sarah, who is more maternal: Sarah is a young woman with a bright future and she's pretty secure in her sense of self.

Question.: Do you have to forget about your femininity to become a surgeon?

Sarah: You definitely have to become tougher. With the nurses, it's fine. But with my superiors I needed to impose myself more to gain their respect. When I was an intern, I was, let's just say, surrounded by a lot of testosterone. Once, a surgeon I was assisting in the O.R. told me that women surgeons are like women cops. So basically, they were just guys.