Tenth DoctHERS Symposium Empowers, Celebrates Women

By Keith Gillogly

Attendees were a mix of alumni, students, attendings, faculty, advocates and many others from within and beyond the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences community.

At the conference, Allison Brashear, MD, MBA, UB’s vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, spoke about the past and current state of women leaders in health sciences.

She reflected on the pathways to advance women and spotlighted historic women trailblazers at the medical school, such as the first woman department chair and first female graduate of the school.

The Jacobs School has made progress in growing the number and percentage of women students, faculty, and leaders, Brashear said. “We have to be very intentional about promoting women.”

The overall number of women in health care has also shown gains, Brashear said, but with some setbacks, like women entering the sector at a slower rate than men. 

Benny L. Joyner Jr., MD, MPH, the A. Conger Goodyear Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, shared the importance of voice and how sponsorship and mentorship can help lift up women in medicine.

Nationally, female representation in pediatrics is strong, Joyner said, with women making up some 66 to 75% of pediatricians. But only about a third of chairs of pediatrics are women, highlighting a leadership gap.

Joyner further discussed the importance of overcoming structural and inherent biases and barriers and recounted several of the influential women he’s been mentored by and whom he’s mentored. 

As for continuing progress, Joyner said that “using our collective voices to amplify the work that we do, I think we can do amazing things.”

Vitality is a key component to practicing medicine, said visiting alumna Surbhi Bansal, MD ’09, associate professor and medical director of ophthalmology at Virginia Commonwealth University.

While speaking at the conference, she drew analogies between vitality and several biological processes. Practicing medicine and working in health care is demanding, which is why it’s important to maintain homeostasis. Just as the body maintains equilibrium, facing challenges and bouncing back is essential, she said.

Between neurons, connections happen at the synapse. Similarly, Bansal emphasized that connecting and networking help move science, medicine and shared goals forward.

Emmetropia describes the condition of having clear vision, being neither near sighted nor far sighted. Maintaining vitality means being able to look ahead to achieve both individual and collective goals, Bansal shared. “You have a path forward, and you are incorporating other people’s vision into your future picture.”

During the keynote presentation titled “Empowering Women: The Intersection of Wellness and Leadership,” Bonnie Litvack, MD, discussed how cultivating wellness and resilience empowers women and promotes leadership.

Litvack is a diagnostic radiologist at the Women’s Imaging Center at Northern Westchester Hospital and past president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. She is founder and chair of the Women Physicians Leadership Academy, an organization aimed at transforming the future of health care leadership by equipping physicians with tools, confidence and inspiration needed to thrive.

Reflecting on her own time as a medical student, Litvack pointed to women’s limited representation among faculty at her school. There were no female department chairs, and more than 80 percent of faculty were men.

Now, nationally, women still make up less than half of the faculty at medical schools and only 25% of department chairs, Litvack shared. Further, large compensation gaps between men and women physicians still exist.

Litvack stressed that improving and promoting women’s leadership starts with empowerment. Information sharing, creating autonomy through boundaries, and letting teams become their own hierarchy were some of the keys to empowerment discussed. “We have to think about how we can open more doors and what are the keys to opening more doors,” Litvack said.

She also emphasized the importance of accepting new opportunities, especially from mentors, while staying mindful of capacity. Critically, Litvack said that wellness-centered leadership fosters empowerment. “Wellness has to be at the center of everything we’re thinking about,” she said, “We can’t advance as leaders if we’re not putting wellness first.”   

UB DoctHERS comprises a network of women physicians, scientists, alumni, faculty, health care professionals, residents and students who address current issues in the medical and scientific fields to foster advancement, mentorship and equal opportunities for future generations of women in medicine and science.

The UB DoctHERS symposium was proudly supported this year through the generosity of the Jacobs School, the Medical Alumni Association, the Loftus Family Fund, and the Sylvia W. Sussman, MD ’60 Fund.

If you have ideas or are interested in becoming a mentor or contributing toward the DoctHERS program, please contact Jennifer Britton, senior director of engagement and DoctHERS liaison, at 716-829-2586.