Anthology Brings Light to Empowered Voices of Women in Medicine

This Blog post represents a partnership between the Women in Medicine Summit and Healio Women in Oncology. The original piece can be found at Healio’s Women in Oncology Blog.

Author: Jennifer Southall

Shikha Jain, MD, FACP, and Avital Y. O’Glasser, MD, FACP, FHM, have published an anthology focused on the need for change and growth in addressing gender inequities in medicine.

An Evolution of Empowerment explores the concepts that continue to perpetuate inequities in the field — through blog entries published originally through Women in Medicine (WIM) as well as Healio’s Women in Oncology — including the leaky pipeline, structural misogyny, gaslighting, bullying, sexism and racism, and more.

“Expect content that is eye-opening, insightful, thought-provoking and, at times, uncomfortable — as much of it challenges us all to shake up dogmas and envision new opportunities for professional development, advocacy and self-care,” O’Glasser, hospitalist and expert in perioperative medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, told Healio.

“There is so much heart, spirit and electricity in these pages — each piece is embedded with the passions, experiences and wisdom from the authors,” O’Glasser continued. “The book is meant to be read as a whole because there is so much synergy and it truly is more than the sum of all parts. We were intentional with our outline for the book and sequence of essays. There are more than 70 empowered voices in the book, and they all deserve to be heard and need to be heard. The reader will be better for it.”

Jain, associate professor of medicine with tenure in the division of hematology/oncology at University of Illinois Cancer Center in Chicago and consulting editor for Healio Women in Oncology, told Healio it is truly an honor to share the words and voices of this incredible group of authors.

“Anyone who reads these works will find pieces that especially resonate with them and their own life experiences,” Jain said. “The powerful narratives in this collection will open the eyes of many to the resilience, empathy and strength of so many in health care, and the trials and tribulations that are navigated with exceptional outcomes. The vulnerability, honesty, empathy, compassion and beautiful stories weaved throughout this anthology make this a book that readers will not want to put down.” 

After reading this book, O’Glasser said readers will walk away feeling inspired and empowered.

“Empowered to have new conversations in their professional and personal spaces when it comes to gender equity and allyship, empowered to explore their identity as an advocate [for themselves and/or others], empowered to continue to process the trauma of gender inequity and the COVID-19 pandemic, and empowered and enthused to rethink how they may be a mentor as well as a mentee,” O’Glasser said. “This book arose from the nontraditional scholarship of blog entries, which many people in medicine and professional circles shun, but it became a published book. It is beyond thrilling that we have given this potent voice to so many, especially the nearly 2 dozen students, residents and trainees who have their first major professional scholarly accomplishment in this book.”