The Year Ahead

Foundation President Dr. Laraque-Arena forecasts 2024 

Every January 1 brings the promise of earnest resolutions to achieve long-sought goals and the opportunity to make things right.

In these early days of 2024, Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation President Danielle Laraque-Arena, MD, FAAP has a nuanced view of what this year will mean for women in medicine and for the Foundation.  

“It’s a complicated question, even for an optimist,” she said, before adding, “I have some hopeful signs.” 

The journey

Dr. Laraque-Arena points to Elizabeth Blackwell, and Rebecca Lee Crumpler — the first woman to become a physician and the first African American woman to become a physician, respectively. 

“We’ve been at this for 150 years,” she said of women in medicine, “and yet it’s been slow.” 

Despite the fact that women now comprise 50.5% of medical school class participants, true equity in the medical profession remains elusive, according to an editorial in the October 2020 issue of Academic Medicine. 

“The potential to be 50/50 is there, but that’s not in fact what the journey is,” Dr. Laraque-Arena said, citing this source. “The journey is continuous attrition at the various levels the closer up to the top we get.”  

The numbers Laura Weiss Roberts, MD, MA cited in her 2020 Academic Medicine article are stark: Women make up 18% of U.S. medical school deans and 19% of clinical department chairs. They also lead fewer than 15% of academic departments of anesthesiology, emergency medicine, neurology, otolaryngology, and surgery. 

“If you look at subcategories of women based on ethnicity and the social construct of race, those numbers are exceedingly small,” Dr. Laraque-Arena pointed out. According to the same journal article: 

Most women in leadership roles are White: 73.9% of female chairs in clinical departments are White and 74.9% of female chairs in basic science departments are White. Among women who lead basic science departments, only 8% are Hispanic, 7% are Asian, and 4% are Black or African American. Among women who lead clinical departments, 5% are Hispanic, 11% are Asian, and 8% are Black or African American. Just 1.3% of clinical departments and 0.75% of basic science departments are led by Black or African American women.

Personal histories 

Female physicians continue to experience higher risks of professional burnout and suicide than their male peers, a national trend one hopes will become obsolete in 2024 and beyond. 

And yet, Dr. Laraque-Arena has seen change firsthand over the course of her medical career. 

For her, the challenges facing the next generation of women in medicine are doubly personal. 

“My daughter is a fifth-year surgical resident,” Dr. Laraque-Arena said. “She made a decision to have a child during medical school and thus far two children during her residency. Because things have gotten better. That was unheard of in my day and for the cohort that came before me.” 

The national landscape

All this is playing out against the backdrop of healthcare in the United States. 

“The debate about abortion and the issues of reproductive justice are very tough.” A leading injury science and prevention researcher, Dr. Laraque-Arena also notes that, per an analysis conducted in 2022 by Jason Goldstick, PhD et al., the leading cause of death for 1-19 year-olds is firearms injuries. “We have to tackle some tough discussions at the national level in terms of where we put our resources and how we come together.”

In 2024, women in medicine can play an integral role in addressing these issues and making meaningful change, just as their predecessors did. 

The Foundation — led by Dr. Laraque-Arena and the luminaries serving on its Board of Directors — is dedicated to preserving the stories of those who have come before. It is also committed to supporting the work of modern-day women medical practitioners.  

Preserving the past, inspiring the future 

“It is so important to document that change and recognize the contributions of women in medicine and science,” she said. “Understanding history is also understanding the research that needs to happen.” 

By persisting and thriving in the traditionally male bastion of medicine, women have changed it for the better already. 

“The most important component of clinical medicine is taking a good history,” she said, “and the concerns of women — meaning what patients would come to physicians for and say, ‘These are my symptoms’ — weren’t being heard.  

“We ask different questions, oftentimes from our feminine perspective. The inclusion of women in medicine and science has facilitated the discourse of populations that have been ignored.”  

That’s where the Foundation’s Alma Dea Morani Renaissance Women in Medicine Oral History Project takes on added importance this year and going forward. 

“These are the trailblazers,” Dr. Laraque-Arena said of the women whose life stories illuminate the not-so-distant past. 

They’re also lighting the way forward.

On a mission

A strategic planning meeting last year with the Board crystallized a key takeaway. 

“The mission absolutely should be at the service of improving health outcomes, improving the development of science that then improves both individual health and population health. 

So that’s the mission,” Dr. Laraque-Arena continued. “It’s not only to recognize what women have done in the fields of medicine and science. That is to say, let’s not forget what they’ve done. Let’s apply it, and let’s also move forward with those contributions.”

Moving forward together 

As the Foundation works to fulfill its mission, it aims to do so with help from strategic partners. 

“Let’s move forward together with our allies,” Dr. Laraque-Arena said. “Who are our allies? Well, certainly men. They’d better be!” 

She also hopes to strengthen the Foundation’s alliance with the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) — a collaboration that has produced two timely lectureship events thus far. The Foundation is also exploring ways to partner with the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine program (ELAM). 

Raising awareness

Forging high-profile collaborations with other initiatives that elevate the contributions of women in medicine will help realize two of the Foundation’s goals: to raise money and to raise its profile as it begins its second quarter-century of existence.  

“We are a young foundation,” Dr. Laraque-Arena said. “We would like to increase our visibility to say how important history is, but also how the journey now is critically important to improving the health status of our populations, and that the contributions of women are going to be extremely important in raising the profile of the health status in the United States.

“We have to remain activists in the fields of science and medicine. That means doing good science that’s rigorous, publishing findings, and then tackling issues that have been perhaps ignored in the past.”

Doing the work 

So, when might women in medicine expect true equity in the workplace? 

Not this year. 

According to a presentation Dr. Laraque-Arena gave in 2016, it will take 48 years for the national cohort of women to achieve 50% representation across the assistant, associate, and full professorship ranks.

 She is, however, undaunted even by this daunting prospect. 

“It’s a long haul,” she said. “That’s why this work is so important: so that we build on prior success. And keep building and keep building.”