Name: Heather Boynton, MD
Residency Program: University of California San Diego Medical Center
Graduation Date: June 2019
RSA is proud to share the following essay from one of the 2018 FemInEM Idea Exchange (FIX) Scholarship winners, Heather Boynton, MD. Congratulations, Dr. Boynton!
Photo Title: Where My Witches At
On Halloween nine years ago I met my fake husband. I showed up at my best friend’s house dressed as Accident Prone. I had been working at an orthopedic clinic and used the time to craft a costume that included a full leg cast, two short arm casts and a cast hat. Who needs a cast hat? A 30-year-old who had an early midlife crisis, quit her life in foreign policy, broke her clavicle skiing, got out of a terrible relationship and was now going to a Halloween party. It got hot at the party and I took off and lost the cast hat. My fake husband was my best friend’s idea. Long story short, I told her the only not-insulting time I had been hit on was in Germany, when men asked me what books I was reading. She produced a German for the Halloween party. He wore a strange costume. We took a picture with Jesus and Mary, and I thought that was the end of that. Now he’s my fake husband. “Fake” because we never got married. “Husband,” because we have a nice life together, and a 7-year-old daughter who thinks of my EM colleagues as her friends, not mine. Last Halloween my daughter and I dressed as witches. You’d think it would get old, to keep saying, Where my witches at? It doesn’t. It’s the best. It’s like code, for strong and powerful lady people. We were and we are. Wiiiitches.