Originally published here.

This past year in medicine has been challenging and interesting to say the least. However, it has been and continues to be an especially chal-lenging time for my colleagues who are women. At Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago, IL, approximately 80% of my colleagues are women. Although all of my pediatric colleagues over the past 4 decades are some of the brightest people I know, I want to spend some time paying tribute to the women I have worked with who face many challenges but work hard every day to achieve their professional goals.

Dr. Lucy Lester has written a new book, Women and the Practice of Medi-cine: A New History (1950-2020), which is a comprehensive history of the chal-lenges faced by women who have wanted to enter a career in medicine between 1950 and the present day.1 I have been in medicine since I worked as an orderly in my college days 50 years ago, and I thought I had a good perspective of the challenges women in medicine have faced.

The truth is, I have no real idea. In addition, it is evident that women contin-ue to be promoted in the academic system at a slower rate and are underrepresented in upper faculty ranks, on National In-stitutes of Health study sections, and in the senior leadership in pediatric hospital medicine.2-4 A recent article by Spector et al.5 provides a strategic methodology to (1) examine equity, diversity, and in-clusion data; (2) share results with stakeholders; (3) investigate causality; (4) implement strategic interventions; (5) track outcomes and adjust strategies; and (6) disseminate results.

This approach is followed by “a climate of trans-parency and accountability with leaders prioritizing and financially supporting workforce gender equity.”5 The emphasis is on the fair treatment of women pedia-tricians from leaders in four key gate-keeper groups: academic medical centers, hospitals, health care organizations, and practices.Nowadays, when I give talks to the third-year medical students about pediat-ric illnesses and I mention that male pre-mature infants have a more challenging time with survival than females, and male children tend to have more challenges with progress in their development, I then pause, and mention that women overall live longer than men do, and, in general, face greater challenges in life.

I have had the pleasure of witnessing many women, including my wife, my daughters, and my colleagues, thrive ev-ery day in highly demanding professional careers, motherhood, and manage numer-ous responsibilities and life circumstances outside of the office. What I learned after reading Dr. Lester’s book, in diversity, equity, and inclusion discussions, and in conversations with women in pediatrics, is that although the potential for women to be recognized for their contributions and be promoted in hospital and academic medical systems, such as Dr. Vineet Arora who has recently been promoted to Dean of Medical Education at The University of Chicago, we still have a long way to go to achieve true equity.  In my position as a senior pediatric professional, I will be a resource to assist my colleagues who are women achieve their career goals in pediatrics.

You can read the complete article here.