COVID-19 Shows Women in Medicine Leading at All Levels
Women are not only active across disciplines and levels of leadership in the medical field, but critical to our healthcare system and to the pandemic response
The current pandemic has impacted people around the world. In the US, medical professionals at every level confront the virus daily. Most news coverage features the risk and challenges facing medical professionals and our society at large.
The members of the Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation board noted something else: Women are now working at every level in medicine.
“In this pandemic, we get to see the result of what the years of pushing for women and leadership has yielded,” shared Carolyn Britton, MD, MS, Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology at Columbia Presbyterian Neurological Institute. “If you look at important forces in every field that they have to call on for expert advice, there is an expert woman included.”
One of the more noteworthy in the country is Deborah L. Birx, MD, a world-renowned global health official, and physician. She is one of the most visible leaders during this crisis as she is working directly with the White House. Her public briefings provide not only a consistent and stable presence but also critical information.
Nancy Messonnier, MD, the Director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), is also highly visible. In addition to her already prestigious position, she was one of the first to warn us of the coming pandemic.
“These are the people who’ve been building a country of women over the past 20-30 years, and now they’re in places of tremendous seniority and interpersonal importance,” continued Dr. Britton. “This is where the push matters. When all these women get together, look at what we have: we have the early warning voice, the person who stands next to the president, and all the epidemiologists and statisticians. There have been women in every one of these spheres that have been of great prominence.”
The Shift
In the past, women were not able to hold positions of prominence - indeed, they were still struggling for their right to earn medical degrees into the early 1900s.
According to research, by the 1860s, women could earn medical degrees from at least three schools that were strictly for women and from several schools that became coeducational. The number of women doctors increased substantially between 1870 and 1900, from about 500 to about 7,000.
Thus, during The 1918 Influenza Pandemic, women played a role, but certainly not one that had them center stage.
“Most women didn’t even think about becoming doctors,” shared Connie Newman, MD, an endocrinologist and physician-scientist who is a nationally respected leader in hypercholesterolemia and statin safety. Dr. Newman is an adjunct professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine and Academic Visitor at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. “[At that time] there were laws against married women working in various states. We’ve come a long way.”
Women have come a long way indeed. Today, women make up 91% of nurses, 74% of healthcare workers, and almost 62% of pharmaceutical professions.
“Women aren’t just the leaders - although that’s important to recognize,” said Christie Huddleston, MD, a private practice psychiatrist. “Women are physicians, in the ICUs, in administration, and in public health.”
Right now, nurses are especially critical. They are a vital link between the patient and the rest of the health care team. They are with their patients for extended periods of time. Through assessment and critical thinking, they are able to recognize subtle changes in their patients that could indicate they are decompensating or getting better. They then manage the human response to the medical situation.
Historically, this was one way into the medical field for women. “My grandmother went into nursing, and her mother threw her out as a prostitute,” shared Dr. Huddleston. “She went to Washington DC and trained at George Washington, met my grandfather, who was a physician. [He] became a military physician and she worked as a nurse during the war when her sons were all in Europe. That's what the women did in those days.”
All this still says nothing of the myriad of ways women are involved in medicine beyond those with medical-related degrees. The UN shared a piece looking at 5 women on the frontlines globally, handling everything from testing to technology to maintaining hope. All of these roles are necessary, especially during a pandemic.
This Shift Will Necessitate Others
The shift to more women in medicine - and more women leading the medical field - brings to light other challenges. During this pandemic, a focus has fallen on women’s roles at home.
“Many articles are coming out looking at the fact that women are again called upon to take the primary role as homeschoolers and as childcare workers because people are isolated at home,” shared Julia A. Haller, MD, Ophthalmologist-in-Chief at Wills Eye Hospital.
In many cases, this is because women have taken on this role all along.
This pandemic may force that to change for women in medicine. Specifically, the shift in economics may make it so that the woman in medicine becomes the primary breadwinner while her male partner stays at home.
If we look to history, The 1918 Influenza Pandemic actually opened access to the labor market for women, and in unprecedented numbers, they took jobs outside the home. According to a piece by The Smithsonian, following the conclusion of the war, the number of women in the workforce was 25% higher than it had been previously, and by 1920, women made up 21% of all gainfully employed individuals in the country.
To give the pandemic all the credit would be inaccurate, but it was a large contributing factor. Circumstances may once again necessitate a shift that’s been a long time coming.
We Continue the Narrative
Our ability to reach a point where there are women in all levels of medicine, including prominent ones at the national level, comes as a direct result of the women who came before us.
Rosalind Franklin, PhD helped discover the double-helix structure of DNA molecules. Dr. Florence Sabin, who led a career of firsts from her internship all the way through her post-career pursuits. Eleanor Bliss, ScD, worked with fellow Johns Hopkins University professor Perrin H. Long to uncover numerous uses for sulfa compounds and launched antibacterials into the public consciousness.
“What defines the 21st century is that we’re a global community,” said Danielle Laraque-Arena, MD, FAAP, a nationally renowned researcher, clinician, and administrator. “We are obviously driven by technology, big data, and data systems so we can look at predictive analytics in order to formulate better solutions to some of the key problems around the world.
“I think women are critical to that, to defining what the problems are in health and in medicine, and to really help focus talent in the best ways.”
Especially during a global pandemic, the risk is real. The challenges are real. And women continue to rise.