Year 4. March 17. Celebrating Women LEADERS in the DoM
The UCLA Department of Medicine’s (DoM) success is owed in large part to the women LEADERS among our faculty and staff. They are driving change in healthcare through groundbreaking health equity research, are making cutting-edge discoveries that will revolutionize medicine, are helping the next generation of physicians become transformative leaders, are providing exceptional clinical care to our patients and much more. In honor of Women’s History Month, I would like to train the spotlight on just a handful of the many, many women in our department who are changing the field of medicine every day. Learn about their contributions and join me in celebrating them and all the women history makers in the DoM.
Research: Jocelyn T. Kim, MD, PhD
Jocelyn T. Kim, MD, PhD is a physician-scientist and an infectious diseases specialist who studies HIV. Dr. Kim is an alumna of the UCLA STAR program and the infectious diseases program at UCLA. The goal of her research is to find a cure for HIV, which rests on developing a way to destroy reservoirs of virus-containing cells that manage to persist in spite of antiretroviral therapy (ART).
“In order to build those types of strategies, you have to really understand why it’s been difficult, and how to accomplish that,” Dr. Kim explained. In an article published Feb. 14 in Nature Communications, she and a team of researchers from UCLA, Scripps and other institutions shared important insights on the mechanisms that not only keep HIV-infected cells alive but also drive them to proliferate.
“There may be a selective pressure to rid or eliminate some of the cells that seem like easy targets, the ones that are producing a little bit of virus,” Dr. Kim said. “The immune system may go after those cells, but the ones they leave behind may be more difficult to clear because they can’t detect them.”
The findings of Dr. Kim and colleagues will help hone the approaches researchers are using to cure HIV, such as a “shock and kill” strategy that involves activating resistant cell reservoirs so immune cells can detect and destroy them. Dr. Kim is working on such a project alongside Jerome Zack, PhD. Other strategies to clear persistent infected cells can involve vaccines or cell therapies and, in rare cases, bone marrow transplantation.
“There isn’t a unifying approach right now, and I think one reason why is because it wasn’t until more recently that the field has increasingly realized the dynamic nature of the viral reservoirs of cells,” Dr. Kim said.
When she reflects on those who have helped her along the path that brought her to this point in her career, Dr. Kim sees many women whose support has been of “tremendous” value to her.
“I’ve always gravitated towards women that are practical, down to Earth and have good advice,” she said. She counts former infectious diseases division chief and current Executive Vice Chair for Research Judith Currier, MD, MSc as one of her many role models, as are many men who have also understood the struggles that women physician-scientists face. She views men as key to the fight to reduce burnout and improve the success of women in academic medicine.
“It has to come from not just women but men who we are friends with and mentor woman scientists, they also get it and can give very good advice,” Dr. Kim said. “Success really takes many different perspectives.”
Clinical Education: Kelley Chuang, MD, MA
Kelley Chuang, MD, MA is an all-star clinical educator who inspires LEADERShip among our trainees. She is the associate program director for the internal medicine residency program, an assistant clinical professor for general internal medicine, and also serves as the VA site director for interns in neurology. Teaching has long been her passion.
"I was a high school teacher before I went to medical school and found it both very challenging and gratifying, so I knew I wanted to incorporate teaching into my medical career,” Dr. Chuang said. “There is no greater honor than passing down what I learned from my teachers. I remember the impact they had on me, and I hope to do the same for others.”
Dr. Chuang completed her internal residency training at UCLA. It was there that she met her mentor and VA hospitalist Adela Greeley, MD, who later oversaw Dr. Chuang when she took a faculty position. Dr. Greeley and other female LEADERS at UCLA and the VA have taught Dr. Chuang much about learning how to navigate priorities as a mother, physician and educator.
“I didn’t realize how priceless these mentor relationships are until I became a new mom transitioning back to work after parental leave,” Dr. Chuang recalled. “Between integrating a pumping schedule into clinical duties and figuring out how to be academically productive while still present at home, I’ve been so lucky to have amazing female colleagues show me different ways of integrating work and life along the way.”
Dr. Chuang is proud that there are so many women LEADERS in the DoM and in the greater hospital system. Their presence inspired her during residency and continues to do so today.
“Now I get to work alongside them as colleagues, and the strength in this community makes me feel incredibly supported as a woman in medicine,” Dr. Chuang said.
As a leader in the internal medicine residency program, Dr. Chuang reviews hundreds of applications from women applying to train at UCLA. Their astounding accomplishments make her excited for the future for women in the field, as does current residents’ dedication to tackling ongoing inequities in women’s healthcare.
“There are still many gaps in care for women, but hearing our residents teach about these gaps or advocate for their patients makes me hopeful that these gaps will be smaller in the future,” she said.
Dr. Chuang encourages women who hope to follow in her footsteps to surround themselves with like-minded women and to find mentors who share their priorities. She also has a tip for those who are still trying to find their voice.
“As someone who was never good at speaking up at meetings, remember: Your ideas are valuable and should be shared,” she said.
Thank you, Dr. Chuang, for all of your outstanding work shaping the future of medicine!
Clinical Engagement: Vijaya Surampudi, MD, MS
Let me now introduce you to the work of a DoM LEADER whose courage and creativity has improved the lives of hundreds of patients: endocrinologist and clinical nutrition specialist Vijaya Surampudi, MD, MS, who alongside Michael C. Garcia, MD co-created the Adult Nutrition Support Services for Enteral, TPN Management and Nutrition Oncology clinics at UCLA. Dr. Surampudi was inspired to launch this impactful program after realizing that many patients with feeding tubes lacked coordination of the systems necessary to sufficiently support them.
“At the time, I was mainly focused on nutrition and weight management,” Dr. Surampudi recalled. “But I kept intermittently getting adult patients who were on tube feedings and realized there wasn’t a central place for them to go for care.”
Back then, patients who had feeding tubes placed when they were children continued to be managed by pediatric teams well into their 30s and 40s. However, adult patients who newly needed feeding tubes after, say, cancer treatment, often had to rely on their busy oncologists or primary care physicians to coordinate a complex a web of infusion pharmacists, home health professionals, dieticians and more in order to get the treatment they needed.
“Because of the system that we had, there were care delays,” Dr. Surampudi recalled. “I started realizing there was an opportunity to do better for our patients.”
Through collaboration with colleagues from head and neck surgery, hematology-oncology, radiation oncology and interventional radiology, Dr. Surampudi set about building a clinic to provide comprehensive feeding tube care for adults. They started with a program that provided enteral feeding tubes — ones that enter the stomach — and soon after added another one for total parenteral nutrition. With the support of Dr. Zhaoping Li and help of Lydia W. Chau, RD and Hannah H. Shin, NP, who had experience in alternative feeding modalities, were integral to launching its operations, as were advisors from the pediatric GI group. Four years later, the clinic manages hundreds of patients.
“From day one launching this clinic, it was awesome and truly a collaborative effort from many different departments,” Dr. Surampudi said. “These clinics wouldn’t exist without their help. The best part about these clinics is that even with small changes, you can make a huge impact on a patient’s quality of life.”
Dr. Surampudi feels fortunate to have a long history of mentors and sponsors in her life, both men and women. She feels that women mentors are especially beneficial for mentees of all genders because they offer unique perspectives and can also foster a sense of empowerment and belonging — factors that ultimately contribute to career advancement and leadership development.
“I think so many women before me have paved the way for us and future generations to be able to have choices,” Dr. Surampudi said. “A woman’s place is wherever she chooses to be.”
Staff Excellence: Ariella Barron
I will now highlight the contributions of two staff who shine in their roles in the DoM. Both happen to be from the UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases. We will honor women staff leaders from other divisions in future posts.
The first is Division Administrative Coordinator Ariella Barron, who also is an assistant to division chief Eric Esrailian, MD, MPH. Ariella was recently promoted to a supervisor role; now, in addition to bringing together many moving parts for meetings and events and working on personnel operations, she is dedicating her time to the success of those she oversees.
“I want to offer as much help as I can so they can continue to learn and grow,” Ariella said. “The first thing I did was schedule meetings with them so we could discuss their career goals, because I think that’s really important to know in order to help them succeed in their desired career paths.”
For Ariella, the most rewarding part of her job is creating a smooth and efficient environment for everyone she supports. She enjoys being a “behind-the-scenes” force that helps the division run smoothly and is fulfilled by seeing her attention to detail and organizational skills empower faculty and staff to focus on their goals.
“I think it’s important to make a meaningful impact in a way that might not always be visible but is deeply appreciated,” Ariella said.
Ariella feels that women have played a crucial role in her professional development. Her mother and grandmother were the first to inspire her with their strong work ethics and encouragement to always do her best; her female professors at El Camino College and UCLA offered her the insight and advice that fueled her career trajectory and path to her role in the DoM. Her manager and colleagues continue to help propel her forward in her career today.
“They’ve often led by example and showed me how to navigate challenges, prioritize tasks and foster a positive workplace environment overall,” Ariella said. “I feel like I’ve learned so much from the women in my life who have shaped my career, and I continue to learn, grow and be inspired by them every day.”
Staff Excellence: Sarah Hebb
The next staff member I would like to recognize is Sarah Hebb. Sarah serves as administrative supervisor and project coordinator for the UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases. In her role she manages all of the division’s many assets — from technology to keys — and strategically plans office and lab space.
“I’ve been able to grow a lot in this role, and it’s been really rewarding to help doctors, researchers and staff focus on their main priorities,” Sarah said. “I’m really fortunate to be in a position to have a lot of support and to be able to support my division in doing life-changing work.”
Prior to joining UCLA, Sarah was a manager at a Trader Joe’s. She credits that experience with helping her hone the attention to detail and service-oriented focus that help her excel as a project coordinator.
“I view faculty and staff like my clients — I want to make sure they feel taken care of when they walk into a room. Trader Joe’s values instilled a lot of that in me,” Sarah explained. That includes the idea that little details count if you make them count.
“At the end of the day, does it matter if someone has a different light in their office or lab space? Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “But is it going to make their lives a little easier? Yes.”
As the youngest of seven daughters in her family, Sarah has long drawn inspiration from her older sisters, who also serve as her guides and mentors. She also looks up to her supervisors in the DoM, such as Division Administration Manager Tonishia Boyle.
“Luckily, most of my mentors have been related to me,” Sarah said. “They’re trailblazers who help me make educated choices.”
Thank you to Sarah and Ariella for all of your excellent work!
Beating Back Burnout Among Women Physician-Scientists
There are more women in medicine than ever before. In 2004 women made up just over a quarter of the U.S. physician workforce, with fewer than 200,000; as of 2024, they account for 38% at more than 370,000, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Women have contributed to the growth of 17 out of 20 of the largest specialties, with the biggest gains in critical care medicine, gastroenterology, urology, nephrology and emergency medicine.
These gains are driven by a greater presence of women matriculants in medical school. In 2019, women for the first time accounted for the majority of students enrolled in U.S. medical schools, at 50.5%. This matches the proportion of women who make up the U.S. population.
Yet there is a caveat to this progress. As more women become physicians, a gender gap in burnout has begun to reveal itself. At a national level, 54.5% of women physicians report being burned out, as opposed to 42% of men. Our own data suggests this is especially pronounced among women in academic medicine, at least locally. According to 2024 data from the DoM’s own survey of our research faculty, 53% of women physician-scientists in the department reported feeling burned out, compared to 22% of men.
“Many feel that they’re really balancing two full-time jobs, both as a physician and also in running a household,” Grace Chen, MD, wellness champion for the geriatrics division, said during a special presentation at the Women in Medicine Networking Conference. “It can be even more challenging for physician-scientists, because there’s not a set clinical schedule, you do work around the clock or at different times, so it seems like there’s never a time to turn things off.”
Tisha Wang, MD, a pulmonary and critical care physician and staunch advocate for women in medicine, had similar takeaways from her listening session with mid-level women physician-scientists, which she undertook to learn more about the gender burnout gap.
“This is a complex problem and there are multiple reasons for the gender burnout gap that have been noted in the literature,” she said. Expectations around caregiving, both at home and at work, seem to be two of the key drivers of burnout; women are the predominant caretakers for children and elderly persons at home, and women physicians spend more time both with patients and on ancillary tasks like EHR management because of the gendered expectations of their patients, including female ones. There’s also the ever-present shadow of gender discrimination and an absence of mentors.
“Women have been shown to be just as productive as their male counterparts and there are studies that they may even provide better patient care and communicate more effectively,” Dr. Wang noted. “Furthermore, people tend to mentor people similar to them, so without a group of core female physician scientists, the more junior female mentees will have less access to strong and relevant mentoring.”
To be clear, burnout is a problem for all genders. Although a greater proportion of women physicians consistently report feelings of burnout than men, the rates of burnout among them are still alarming. To Folasade May, MD, PhD, MPhil, some of the blame might be pinned on modern medicine.
“The tempo is very fast,” she said. “If you’re trying to match that tempo in your personal life, in your work life, and other aspects of life, it can become too much.”
Still, Dr. May reiterated Dr. Wang’s and national survey findings that women are particularly vulnerable to burnout.
“We tend to be the ones that are taking on a lot of the things that need to be done in the workplace, in addition to the work in the home,” she said. As a solution, “we need to recognize the early signs of burnout and give people the license to pull back.”
Dr. Wang’s personal experience with burnout at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic taught her how essential it is to lean on others: The pandemic co-director, ICU leadership, pulmonary division, and her administrative team and clinical trial research coordinators all provided crucial support that kept her going.
“I used to use the running analogy during the pandemic — it was like we were running for months and all of a sudden someone would turn up the speed on the treadmill,” Dr. Wang recalled. “And you thought you were going to fall off until you realized someone else could tag in and run for a while so you could go and rest.”
Dr. Wang has also learned over the years that optimizing clinical infrastructure helps everyone, including the physician-scientists who need to maximize their research time. She is currently working on initiatives to do this, such as improving InBasket support, evaluating ways for faculty to have more autonomy over their own clinical schedules, and exploring how advanced practice providers and pharmacy support can improve patient access.
“I’m hoping that more clinical support will slowly close the gender burnout gap for both clinicians and physician scientists and that we can improve burnout overall,” she said.
From Dr. May’s perspective, men play an important role in helping alleviate burnout among women physician-scientists. Besides the imperative of partners to help women with care duties in the home, male physician-scientists can also learn about the challenges faced by their female colleagues and advocate for their inclusion. She is heartened by the recent willingness of men in the field to acknowledge and speak up about the dual personal and professional responsibilities placed on women.
“What’s been remarkable for me over the last few years are those male allies who have been very frank and open in conversations in the workplace about how they know that women are taking on a lot at home and at work,” she explained. “I think males are also starting to recognize that we don’t necessarily get all the same opportunities for leadership.”
The DoM has many initiatives underway or planned to address and prevent burnout among women physician-scientists. One example is the DoM’s expanded pilot program for professional coaching, which is designed not only to emphasize professional achievement but also to help women meet their goals in their personal lives. The wellness office’s In Basket task force is also exploring other ways to help clinicians manage electronic health records, a significant source of burnout. We are also collecting more data to better understand the long-term effects of burnout, such as attrition from science and academia.
These programs are augmented by building community through events like the Women in Medicine Networking Conference and regular lunches, meet-ups and more for women faculty. As Dr. Wang saw for herself during the pandemic, leaning on and learning from each other is perhaps the best medicine.
“It’s about sharing resources or even life hacks,” she said. “It’s about community and friendship and the need to vent sometimes about common frustrations.”
Connection and Community In Action at Women In Medicine Networking Conference
As an example of community building, on March 8, women faculty gathered to connect and celebrate International Women’s Day at the inaugural Women in Medicine Networking Conference at the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center. This impactful event, organized by the DoM Office of Community Engagement and Inclusive Excellence (CEIE) with support from the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine, had the goal of giving women across generations the chance to come together to meet each other and discuss their personal and professional goals.
“I realized there needed to be opportunities for junior women faculty to be able to meet, network and be mentored by our senior women faculty so they could understand how to navigate some of the challenges they’re facing in academic medicine.” Chief of the UCLA Division of Med-Peds and Preventative Medicine Alice Kuo, MD, who organized the event, recalled. “I really believe that when women come together and organize and combine their talents and strengths that we can together overcome some of the structural issues that we face as women in academic medicine.”
Senior LEADERS including Zhaoping Li, MD; Lisa J. Skinner, MD; Janet P. Pregler, MD, Karen Cheng, MD and Carol M. Mangione, MD, MSPH took center stage at panels on navigating challenges around balancing work and home obligations and on professional development, both of which were moderated by Stacey Weinstein, MD. Representatives from the DoM Wellness Office including Chief Wellness Officer Sun M. Yoo, MD, MPH and Dr. Grace Chen shared a presentation on burnout, and Katie Y. Hu, MD of the Center for East-West Medicine used insights from traditional Chinese medicine to illustrate the importance of both caring for oneself and pushing for systemic changes to improve the lives and careers of women faculty.
“We’re providing a platform to uplift, empower and connect women faculty at many different stages of their careers,” said Moira Ann Desphy, MPH, Women in Medicine (WIM) Program Coordinator in the DoM CEIE. Moira was responsible for budgeting and planning, venue selection, programming, panel curation, identifying sponsors for the event, and much more — right down to designing a logo for the swag.
“It was really rewarding to collaborate across departments and learn about all the different groups that exist,” she said. Among the groups that participated in the event were the UCLA Lab School, Alzheimer’s Los Angeles, and the UCLA DoM REST Program. All of them offered services or tools to help alleviate burnout.
REST Medical Director Rauz A. Eshraghi, MD encouraged women in particular to learn more about the program’s tools, which provide comprehensive In Basket management when faculty are out on parental or medical leave or vacation. REST covers medication refills, reviews of lab results with patients and responses to inquiries or phone calls.
“For women, it’s a nice niche, especially after a parental leave or if they’re out on a medical leave or caring for an elderly parent,” Dr. Eshraghi explained. “This can often serve as a bridge.”
To Moira, the resources, conference and the broader work of the WIM program are essential to shaping a more inclusive and effective healthcare system.
“Representation and access to opportunities are critical,” she said. “We want to specifically make sure that women from diverse backgrounds here have the mentorship, resources and the support they need to thrive in a way that not only benefits their careers but enhances patient care and innovation.”
Let me thank the organizers and the sponsors of the WIM Networking Conference for organizing this timely and effective meeting.
Dale
P.S.
In honor of Women’s History Month, let me honor a history maker in her own right – my mother Clair. She is a retired elementary school principal and was a mentor to thousands of young Jamaicans over her career. She’s back home in Jamaica after spending a month with us in LA. I had the chance to hike with her while she was here and the minute she returned home she picked up where she left off, walking and greeting friends in her Kingston neighborhood.
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