As women physicians shine, glass ceilings crack

SPOTLIGHT
Wendy Chung, MD, is the chief
epidemiologist for the Dallas County
Health Department and a member of the
DCMS Community Emergency Response
Committee. Julie Trivedi, MD, is medical
director of infection prevention for the
university hospitals at UT Southwestern
Medical Center. They’re part of the Dallas
Medical Operations Center, which set up
and oversaw the medical clinic at the Dallas
Convention Center during Hurricane Harvey
in 2017.
Wendy Chung, MD, and Julie Trivedi, MD
proportions of men and women physician award recipients
in their organization. Women were underrepresented among
awardees. In the most recent 10-year period, the AAN
presented 187 awards to physician recipients. One hundred
forty-six were men and 41 were women. This occurred despite
significant increases in women AAN membership. Finally,
female physicians are less likely to be properly introduced by
their titles at Internal Medicine grand rounds by their male
colleagues.
How can we address these issues and begin to close the
leadership, compensation and opportunity gaps? I encourage
you to read this position paper on achieving gender equity in
medicine that was published in the May 18 Annals of Internal
Medicine: http://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2678630/achievinggender-equity-physician-compensation-career-advancementposition-paper-american.
The ACP, the largest medical
specialty society in the world, calls for a number of actions
including increased transparency in physician compensation,
and universal access to family and medical leave policies that
provide a minimum of six weeks paid leave. In a major move
to support these policies, the ACP recently implemented a
six-week paid leave policy for parents of newborns or newly
adopted children for ACP staff. And for the first time in its 103-
year history, the ACP’s CEO is a woman.
On the home front, the Dallas County Medical Society
established a Women Physicians Committee in 2016. Dr. Lee
Ann Pearse, then DCMS president, believed it was important
for women physicians to address in an organized way the
issues that affect them and their practices. We have had some
excellent meetings and, in a move to expand our reach, will
have our first social event for DCMS women physicians on
Sept. 13 at STIRR in Dallas.
Even more work must be done to recognize and
acknowledge the value that women physicians bring to our
patients and our profession. However, I am proud to point out
that a number of Texas woman physicians have blazed trails in
organized medicine.
• In 1997, Dr. Nancy Dickey, professor of family medicine
at Texas A&M University, was elected the first woman
president of the American Medical Association.
• Dr. Susan Rudd Bailey, a TMA past president and current
AMA speaker, is poised to be AMA president.
• Dr. Lynne Kirk, professor of internal medicine at UT
Southwestern, served as ACP president in 2006.
• Dr. Lisa Hollier, my fellow BUMC resident, is president of
the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
• And Dr. Mary Dahlen Peterson, pediatric anesthesiologist
and CEO of Driscoll Children’s Health Plan, soon will serve
as president of the American Society of Anesthesiology.
Dr. Fashena would be smiling at the great strides made by
women in medicine. Let’s keep moving forward! DMJ
Sue Bornstein, MD, FACP, is a board-certified internist. Since
2008, she has been the driving force behind the nonprofit Texas
Medical Home Initiative. The vision of this practitioner-led
organization is to lay the groundwork for a medical home for
every Texan. The group’s work has included a patient-centered
medical home pilot in North Texas and, since 2013, annual
statewide conferences on Primary Care and the Health Home.
Dr. Bornstein is an ACP regent, chairs the ACP Health and
Public Policy Committee, and is a TMA trustee.
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