Empowering Women in Medicine: Leadership, Vulnerability, and Driving Change

[00:00:00] Joy Rios: Welcome back to the show. HIT Like a Girl. We're here. Women in Medicine Summit with the organizer and founder, Dr. Shikha Jain.

How do you feel?

[00:00:17] Dr. Shikha Jain: I am feeling empowered, inspired. I'm inspired and a little exhausted, but overall really excited for what the future brings.

[00:00:25] Joy Rios: Okay. Now let's talk about the last couple of days.

What have been some of your major highlights? We've listened to some incredible speakers, and I feel like my brain is overflowing as well as my heart with just wisdom and like the goodness that we have to look forward to.

[00:00:39] Dr. Shikha Jain: I just, I'm speechless by the people who speak here, the women and men who come take time out of their busy schedules and come here to speak and share their wisdom and their knowledge with us.

It humbles me every time. I cry every year. I have not cried yet this year, but it'll probably happen at some point. From Dr. Jesse Gold talking about being vulnerable and saying it's okay for us to say we're not okay. From that to Dr. Jen Gunter talking about how she took on Gwyneth Paltrow and misinformation and how we can all be misinformation warriors and throwing out the funniest stories and the most heartwarming stories about how she has really made this a mission in her life to educate the public.

Dr. Julie Silver, who was one of our inaugural keynote speakers, having her back this and our sixth year. It was really touching for me and we're about to close with Dr. Kimberly Manning and it's just hearing everyone speak, listening to our allyship panel with people like Lieutenant General Mark Hertling today and Dr.Vinny Arora. 

I just, I am so inspired by the people that I'm surrounded with in this space and not only the speakers, but the attendees. I've had so  many incredible people come up to me who are just change makers and you wouldn't know it because they're so humble and they just came up to me and they said, “Hey, I am”, and they gave their title and I'm, “Oh my gosh. And you want to talk to me?” It's just amazing.

[00:02:04] Joy Rios: I mean, you've collected an incredibly accomplished group of people and it's an honor just to be among them. And so I'm, are you personal friends with all these people? Do you, do they get to call you? Do you call them in your times of need?

[00:02:16] Dr. Shikha Jain: So many of them have actually become my personal friends over the years. Kimberly, Dr. Kimberly Manning, Dr. Vinny Arora have become two of my closest friends. We actually have a little text thread now. And I feel so lucky, honestly, because anyone who comes into my orbit, I think of them as a friend. And then there's friends who you talk to all the time and friends who you just talk to when you need them and friends who you text periodically and friends who you email.

So I think everyone who attends ends up becoming my friend, but some of them have become such dear friends to me and they've transformed my life. I think that you have.

[00:02:50] Joy Rios: It’s such a, you've given such a good example because in trying to do and create the change that you want to see in the world, I'm sure that it impacts you personally, but you're bringing everybody else along with you.

And I just want to talk, I want you to talk about your mission and like the why behind all of this.

[00:03:07] Dr. Shikha Jain: So we always talk about lift as you rise when we talk about the Women in Medicine Summit. And I really try to embody that because I think. We can all help each other be better. And I don't think it's a competition mindset.

The better you're doing, the better it is for me. And the better I'm doing, the better it is for you. And if I can help other people do amazing things and do good in the world, that only is going to have a positive impact. So for me, what I try to do is I want to bring people together. I try to create networks where people who normally wouldn't be in the same room end up in the same room.

And I think that's where real innovation happens. It's not just talking to your same people in your same silo. You've got to get out of that box and talk to people who you might never be in a room with otherwise. And that is some of the things I think that have come out of this study summit and some of the ripple effect I've seen have been because of the networks and the connections that have been made.

And it's been transformative for so many people. And I just love that so many people come here wanting to do that for others.  

[00:04:08] Joy Rios: I think it's really possible for a person to feel isolated or alone in their experience. And coming here, you start to really uncover the systemic problems. And one thing I really like about what you have done is collect data and also create data.

So can you talk about the research aspect?

[00:04:26] Dr. Shikha Jain: Yeah, so we have a research lab that actually is really working on putting together different research studies based on problems that we know exist and then solutions. So the research lab, we let people basically come up with their own ideas and we let them lead.

And it's anyone from students to senior faculty. And it's really been amazing to see the ideas that people come with. And so we publish data because, as I always say, my dad is a surgeon and says, don't come to me with your problems, come to me with your solutions. And data is the first step in figuring out how do we drive solutions.

Every year at the summit, we put out a research study that is on a different topic. Sometimes it's about parental leave. Sometimes it's about work life balance and stress, and we try to collect that data as well. And when we publish this data, we don't just publish it in academic journals. We also publish and write op eds.

We do TV news interviews, because this is stuff that shouldn't just matter to people in health care. It directly impacts patient care, and we need to let people know that. My friends who aren't in health care don't always realize that the work I'm doing here is not just for the workforce. It's also for the health of our communities. So everyone should care about equity in the healthcare space because it's not just for us who are working there. It's also for you who are patients and need to have good female physicians.

You need to have good Inclusive physicians, you need people who are investing money and time into women's health research. All of this stuff directly impacts patient care.

[00:05:55] Joy Rios: Okay, so let's talk about some of the impact that you have seen based on some of those changes over the last six years. There's good to, there's good to be reported.

[00:06:03] Dr. Shikha Jain: There is good to be reported. For the last several years, we've had more than 50 percent women in the med schools, admissions into med schools. We're starting to see slowly, increase. Deans and increase and when I say slow, it's like I have 7 percent incremental increases. So it's not happening fast enough, but we're starting to see those changes.

So that's really good. The pay gap that still exists has gone from, I think it's 26 percent to 23%. So 3 percent increase or improvement is not great, but it's better than going the opposite direction. Individually and anecdotally, I've talked to women who have come here to the summit specifically, and they've actually taken the skills they've learned, and they've used it in their own institutions to drive parental leave policies.

Some of them have created their own women in medicine support groups and networks. and book clubs and task forces and they've taken the data from the summit and the data that's presented and they present it to their leadership and they say, look, we are losing women physicians. The retention is a problem and look how much money you're losing by losing women physicians.

And so they've been able to take the data and apply it to real world examples and resulted in getting more funding, coaching for women physicians, which we've shown. Impacts, burnout seminars and things on implicit bias and racism and sexism. And we really have seen a transformation and we actually with women in medicine are launching a, we've had this inclusive leadership lab for male leaders to help men become more inclusive leaders.

And we're partnering this year with ELAM to bring it to even more deans and leaders across the country. And who's ELAM? What's the acronym? So ELAM stands for executive. Oh, I'm going to mess it up. Executive leadership in academic medicine. Double check me on that one, but it's through Drexel and Dr. Nancy Spector is the one who leads that organization.

They are internationally known for being really focused on helping women achieve leadership positions and helping them be successful when they're there. It's a very elite group of women who get into this program and they also launch their executive leadership in healthcare administration, ELH program a couple years ago as well.

So they're really focused on driving women into leadership and closing those gaps. And so we're excited to partner with them to create this leadership programming for men.

[00:08:22] Joy Rios: Okay, there's a few things that are coming up for me. And one is the connection to money. We talk about it's not It's a lot of times, it's great to know that the stats are the facts, but a lot of times what drives decisions are the, is the business case.

And I like that aspect of connecting the data to decisions that are made. You don't want to lose women, not just because, oh, you missed the women, but it's going to affect your bottom line. I want to talk about that, or I'd like you to talk more about that. And then I would also like you to talk about how there's more men here and the allyship conversation, because it's really incredible to see.

And so both of those are connected.

[00:08:58] Dr. Shikha Jain: And so first let's talk about the money. So the amount of money, and I don't know the exact numbers, but it's really high. When women leave to recruit a new physician per se, it's, I believe I heard a quote where it's around a million dollars to do the recruitment process, a whole new package, bonuses, all the things that go along with it.

So when you lose women from the healthcare system, just getting new women in that in itself is a loss. So you've lost money. They're already coming out the gate. Women, physicians in particular, focus more on preventative health, and they also spend more time on the electronic medical record communicating with patients, which has been shown to improve patient outcomes. Improved patient outcomes decreases health system costs.

Now let's talk about insurance. Women surgeons have lower mortality and lower morbidity when they do surgery, meaning patients who are operated on by a woman have less likely to have a complication or die. from the surgery. All of these things increase health care costs.

So why would we not want the people who are actually having the least complications, the least death, the least readmission rates, all of those things save hospitals money. Why on earth would we not want to retain these people? And not only that, but invest money into not only keeping them there. But putting them into positions of leadership because data has also shown, especially during the pandemic, that women leaders were exceptional leaders and actually led better during the pandemic.

So why would we not be focusing on investing money in trying to keep these women here? Because at the end of the day, it's going to save millions of dollars in healthcare costs in your bottom line in the cost of how you're running the institution. So those are all just a couple of the reasons why we should be focusing on this. Not just because it's good and we're good people and it's mission driven but because it actually saves everybody money.

[00:10:52] Joy Rios: What about the counter? To the folks that are, the disincentivized the less investment that's going into DEI. We've, we saw that increase and we've seen it decrease. And it's really disheartening to see, but the data shows that it is worth investing in. Comment.

[00:11:10] Dr. Shikha Jain: It's really sad that we're starting to have these conversations yet again because as we talk about women in general are often the ones who are voluntold to do the DEI work and they're not compensated for it.

So that again contributes to the lack of them being elevated and promoted. The fact that we're not investing money where we know it's going to help us with our bottom line and help with patient outcomes does not make any sense. And I think it's because DEI phrase acronym has become super politicized and it shouldn't be politicized.

Nothing about this is political. We're not saying you need to just put people in positions because you need somebody, a person of color in a position, or you need a woman in the position. That's not what we're saying at all. And that's what the argument back often. We don't just want someone there who doesn't know what they're doing.

We don't want that either. But the data consistently shows that the people who are getting passed over are often more qualified than the people put in those positions. And as a case study I presented at this study showed, looking at deans, for example, they found that the male deans were always given stepping stones.

Sometimes they didn't even have to apply for the position. They were just told, you're going to be the chair of this. And they said, I don't feel qualified. And they're like, no, you're fine. Meanwhile, the women were asking, how do I, What do I need to do? Who needs to mentor me? And they were told, go take a leadership course.

The men were saying, I was the captain of the football team. I don't need a leadership course. The women were saying, I also was a captain of a team and I've done 50 other things, but they were discounted. So it's not that we're asking you to invest in DEI because it's political or because again, it is the right thing to do, but more than that. 

People who are so smart and who could really be driving innovation and change are not getting those positions because they're just simply being overlooked or ignored because of their gender or the color of their skin. And it's bad for everyone. It has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with what's best for our healthcare systems, for our companies, our businesses, and for our patients.

[00:13:15] Joy Rios: Okay. So let's talk about changing the status quo and having more men being part of this conversation. You've done an incredible job of bringing some really amazing men to speak up and speak out on the topic.

[00:13:25] Dr. Shikha Jain: I love the fact that we have more and more men coming every year. I remember the first year I looked out in the audience and the men in the audience were my dad and my husband, and then my twin little boys who were babies at that point.

And I remember thinking to myself, we need to change this because the data shows that whenever women is in the title. Men don't show up and that directly impacts health. And so we started really pushing for inspiring women to invite males, men to come with them because we told them, you're going to leave here feeling empowered when you go back to your healthcare system, nothing's going to change because the people there are still the ones in charge.

So you can leave here feeling. I'm so empowered, but if there's no one there who's going to help you take that baton and move it to the next level, then we're not going to see real change. So we started telling people to invite men with them.

The first year we did that, we got a handful of men, but then when we launched our inclusive leadership programming for men, we started seeing more and more men because men were coming to me and saying, “Dr. Jain, I want to be a better leader. I want to be an inclusive leader. How do I do that?” 

And I said, come to our summit. First, meet all these women, listen to them, because I can tell you what I think, but my experience is different from another woman, is different from another woman. You need to crowdsource and you need to hear from a lot of women what their experiences are.

So then you use those anecdotes and that data and those stories and you drive change. And now, If you notice, we see, we're seeing more and more men, and the men who actually attend have told me this should be required leadership programming for everyone of all genders. And they say it because they say this is not a women in medicine summit.

This is a women “How to lead, how to negotiate, how to drive change, how to empower yourself”. These are skills and things that everyone should have. And we're framing them in a way where gender is not the main focus. The focus is how can we make sure everyone is getting equity and equal opportunities? It's not just about the tokenism, we don't want tokenism. What we want is we want to figure out how do we make sure the best person is picked for the job, not just the convenient person.

[00:15:36] Joy Rios: Okay. So I'm sure it might be too soon to be asking you about what's next, because I bet what is really next for you is a nap.

[00:15:44] Dr. Shikha Jain: Yes, that is exactly what is next actually.

[00:15:47] Joy Rios: But what are you looking forward to and what do you anticipate for next year?

[00:15:50] Dr. Shikha Jain: How the program will change in Braille. So one thing I will say, along with the nap, I promised my husband some quality time because the month before the summit, he's like, when do I get you back? So we're going on a date night sometime soon.

But for the next year, I always get scared after each summit because I get some imposter phenomenon. And I think to myself, “Oh my gosh, what if next year is not as good?” People are so effusive and so excited. So I think to myself, how am I going to make sure that the speakers next year are just as good?

But it's been six years and our speakers have been phenomenal every year. So I'm a little bit less scared about that for next year. I am really looking forward to this coming year to launching this inclusive leadership lab with the ELAM program and getting more and more men to know about this because I want this to become the premier leadership program in the nation.

And I want the majority of the people to still be women coming because it is a Women in Medicine Summit. But I don't want it to be only women. I want men here and I want more and more women to come I want women not just women physicians. We are open to women in health tech nurse practitioners come we have PAs. We have social workers we have so many women in health care who all of the data, all of the narratives, all of these stories, they apply to them as well.

And so I want to really see how we can drive change on a national level. And I'm very excited for our CME crews to the South of France in March. And so I'm also looking forward to that because we'll be on a ship with Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling and Dr. Kimberly Manning and Dr. VK Gotti and Lori Bedke and all of these amazing people and we're going to be able to relax and drink wine while we do CME and go down the south of France in a ship that is only for our group and talk about what's next because there's a lot to come.

I think we're going to keep driving change. I think there's a lot of ways that we can continue to positively disrupt. And I'm just excited to see what comes out of this year and all of the people who attended and all the things that they accomplish when they get back to their homes.

[00:18:00] Joy Rios: It feels like that might be one way to battle burnout.

[00:18:02] Dr. Shikha Jain: Absolutely. That's exactly why I said, if I'm going to do a CME retreat, it's going to be on a ship drinking wine in the South of France. And here we go. That's what we're going to do.

[00:18:12] Joy Rios: I like it. A woman of action.

[00:18:14] Dr. Shikha Jain: Exactly.

[00:18:15] Joy Rios: Thank you for everything that you do. If people want to follow you, join your movement or get involved or come next year, where are you going to appoint them?

[00:18:23] Dr. Shikha Jain: There's a couple easy ways. You can follow me on social media. I'm at ShikhaJainMD on all platforms. You can come to our website, womeninmedicinesummit.org, that's the summit site, or you can go to our non profit site, wimedicine.org.

[00:18:38] Joy Rios: Dr. Jain, thank you for everything. It is an honor to be in your orbit.

[00:18:41] Dr. Shikha Jain: I am just so happy that HITLike a Girl has been here for the last couple of years.

You inspire me in what you do, and I love having you all here. Your content is some of my favorite content, and I am just really excited to see what you and I can do together in the future.

[00:18:58] Joy Rios: Thanks for listening. You can learn more about us or this guest by going to our website or visiting us on any of the socials with the handle HIT Like a Girl pod. Thanks again. See you soon.

Again, thank you so much for listening to the HIT Like a Girl podcast. I am truly grateful for you, and I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave us a rating or review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend?

All those things help us podcasters out so much. I'm the show's host, Joy Rios, and I'll see you next time.

I'm the show's host, Joy Rios, and I'll see you next time.