Inspired by #ILookLikeASurgeon and #WomenInSurgery? Us, too.

August 26, 2015

By: Barbara Phillips, MD, FCCP

About 2 weeks ago, photos and tweets popped up on social media under the hashtag of #ILookLikeASurgeon and #WomenInSurgery. I was inspired to take a look at pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine as a whole, and our organization, to take stock of how we’re doing. 

Here’s what I found:

• 20% of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine physicians in the United States are women, according to recent reports by the American Medical Association in Physician Characteristics and Distribution.  

• 23% of all members of the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) are women.

• 24% of our Board of Regents is made up of women, and 18% of the CHEST Foundation’s Board of Trustees are women. 

• 82% of CHEST Foundation grant winners in 2015 were women.

• In the past 7 years, two presidents of CHEST have been women, including myself and Dr. Kalpalatha Guntupalli. We were preceded by Dr. Susan Pingleton (1999-2000) and Dr. Deborah Shure (1995-1996).

• Our Women’s Health NetWork group remains one of the largest and strongest of our interest groups, boasting a membership of 638 clinicians from around the globe.

So, what does this all mean? It means we’re well-represented in our organization, we’re making strides to encourage women to enter the fields of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine; and our organization is filled with talented, thoughtful, and inspiring women.  We look like pulmonary, critical, and sleep doctors because we are!  

What else can we do to encourage women in medicine to join us?  Send a tweet and tag CHEST (@accpchest) to join the conversation on Twitter.