Alumni Impact

How has the SLU mission informed your work?

I’ve often thought the Jesuit mission has not just informed my relationship with the patients I treat but also the ways in which I lead my organization. The Jesuit idea of leading and serving for others is a big part of what I took away from my training at SLU. 

What has been the most surprising thing about your career journey? 

In order to advocate for our patients, I have had to learn a great deal about the business of administering healthcare. 

How has SLU prepared you to meet the challenges and opportunities you've discovered throughout your career?

There is no doubt that practicing medicine in these times is hard. I’ve discovered that keeping the passion I have caring for patients front and center despite challenges and obstacles comes from a place of love. First and foremost it’s the love for humanity and the patients that seek care and counsel that inspires me to face challenges day in and day out. 

What challenges and opportunities are on the horizon for the future of female physicians and scientists?

Women have made huge contributions to science and medicine since the first woman walked across the stage to collect her diploma, but what I have seen increase in the last decade is that women are finding their voices and are engaging more than ever in leadership roles to advance their fields and bring along other talented women. 

How have you mentored women throughout your career?

I’ve been lucky enough to teach medical students and residents, but as the mother of four children, my most gratifying mentorship has come in helping young physician mothers balance a busy career with a healthy, happy family. 

What advice would you give to women in medicine and science today?

I would encourage them to find ways to give back to their field as much as to their individual patients. I would also encourage them to reach out to the women who have gone before them for support and guidance. You don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. 

Anything else you'd like to share?

Healthcare is a challenging field no matter what role one plays in it. That is especially true now with the stress COVID-19 has added. Over the last 18 months, I have become increasingly grateful for the education and experience I gained at SLU. Great leaders and great clinicians aren’t born. They are made and SLU is the kind of institution that makes sure its graduates have the core skills to become both. 

What is your best memory of the School of Medicine?

The mentors and teachers during my four years of residency. They were very influential in my training and I was lucky to have them. 

What has been the most surprising thing about your career journey?

How much I have enjoyed it and continue to do so. I thought it would be a satisfying profession because I was focused on patient care, but it’s the cognitive stimulation and camaraderie that has also been very fulfilling. 

How has SLU prepared you to meet the challenges and opportunities you've discovered throughout your career?

The residency is very demanding but the hard work and hours we put in do prepare us and nothing seems difficult after that. 

What challenges and opportunities are on the horizon for the future of female physicians and scientists?

The challenges continue to be: work-life balance, since women continue to be primary caregivers and homemakers, and the struggle to achieve leadership roles and break the glass ceiling in academia and medicine. Opportunities are there because things are changing, and there is perhaps some—early and fragmented—understanding of the difference women physicians make. Because the field is growing and there are not enough physicians and scientists to do everything, this will open up opportunities by default. 

How have you mentored women throughout your career? How have women become mentors to you?

My main mentor was my mother—a physician herself. I have continued to encourage young women physicians in my work and social life, to hang in there through the first few years which can be very difficult—especially with young children. 

What advice would you give to women in medicine and science today?

The empathy women physicians provide is exceptional. I encourage women to enter this field and aim high.

Anything else you'd like to share?

It has been a very gratifying career and I would do it again without any hesitation. I look forward to many more fulfilling years. The changes happening in medicine are exciting and I expect the future to be bright and perhaps unexpected.

Where are you now?

Currently, I’m in the Kingdom of Bahrain. I flew off CVN-76 [USS Ronald Reagan] yesterday after a one-year tour.

What has been the most sur prising thing about your career journey?

No surprises. The crew of the Reagan and their Air Wing are my new inspiration.

The young men and women on board the USS Ronald Reagan are grinding every day to maintain our maritime efforts as the Navy’s only forward-deployed carrier. The resiliency, personal attributes, and backgrounds of the Navy’s young enlisted made me want to be the best physician possible for those sailors. The challenges for enlisted sailors at sea during the pandemic and Afghanistan drawdown are immense mentally, logistically, and physically. I am so impressed by their abilities to push on in service of their command and country, and I will take their example as my inspiration in patient care.

What challenges and opportunities are on the horizon for the future of female physicians and scientists?

We face the same challenges as our male colleagues: focusing on quality surgical care in the face of an ongoing pandemic and fulfilling our administrative obligations when most of us probably just want to focus on only the clinical and procedural elements of care. There is no need to emphasize separate challenges based on gender. We are all in an environment where the daily mentality and emphasis should always be on the patient, not how we feel we are perceived or exist within the hospital as females.

When you think of SLU what is the one word or phrase that comes to mind?

Si se puede.

Anything else you'd like to share?

Good luck to all SLU students and residents taking on care for a very interesting patient population. Stay strong and keep helping the people of St. Louis, an incredibly violent and economically disadvantaged city that needs doctors who will always do their best for patients and their families. Stay longer to talk to family members, complete care no matter how difficult the circumstances, don’t pass off what is yours to own, and keep reading and studying to know what you’re doing.