Lurker, blah blah... just wanted to share a story you might enjoy

I'm a medical student and am on my hospital rotations. I'm 32, look a little younger than that, but spent some time outside of medicine and so I have wound up being older than the majority of the interns and residents (all of whom already finished their MD), who are my immediate supervisors. My age, and the life experience that got me to this age, mean that I have a calmer, less labile demeanor than some of the interns/residents, especially the females. This can play out in interesting ways.

I was recently working on the internal medicine floor (lower acuity, generally stable patients). A patient was in the hospital and was going to die from his disease soon, and his only goal was to do this at home (Aside: create a durable power of attorney document if you don't already have one. They are invaluable). I was with an intern, Dr. Pam Dee (obv not her real name), who is a female. I don't know how to put it other than this, she always looked extremely anxious, as if she were 3 steps away from tears at any moment. As many people do, she would cover her anxiety with an excess of tremulous words when speaking with patients/families. Unlike her, I tend to be quieter and actually let a patient complete a sentence before interrupting. Remarkable what that does for rapport.

I make an effort to remind families that I am a medical student, please call me by my first name, not yet a doctor. She introduces herself as Dr. Dee every time. One day, at the bedside, we were speaking with a patient/family that I had spent considerably more time with than she had, although she was the one actually putting in orders/meds/etc for them. They consistently addressed me as "Doctor" and her as "Pam". After we left the room, she was fuming at this discordance. It took some self-restraint to avoid blurting out, "Well, maybe if you acted like an actual doctor instead of a frightened rabbit, you wouldn't have this problem."

Got wrecked when she submitted her end-course evaluation of me. I'm pretty sure it was due to this kind of thing.

One last aside - if you ever need a good example of 0 wage disparity, cite medical interns/residents. Equal qualifications (MDs) mean equal pay for them.