Shikha Jain, Founder, Chair of the Board (Former CEO) at Women in Medicine and Associate Professor of Medicine at The University of Illinois Cancer Center, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Institutions say they want physician leaders.
They don’t.
They want physicians who manage well within a broken system. Who fill committee seats and keep things running without asking too many uncomfortable questions.
That is not leadership. That is administration. Most of us were never told the difference.
Here is what actually happens when you try to lead differently:
You get called difficult. Bossy. A troublemaker. Too passionate. Not a team player.
I know, because it has happened to me.
I have been in rooms where raising a concern was reframed as being a problem. Where advocating for patients was treated as disrupting the process. Where the women trying hardest to change things were quietly, systematically sidelined.
This is not a personal failing. This is a pattern. And it is driving some of the brightest, most empathic, most visionary physician leaders out of the rooms where they are needed most.
Our patients cannot afford that exodus.
The physicians who actually change things are not the ones who stopped pushing. They are the ones who found a community, stayed in the uncomfortable rooms, and kept asking the questions that made people nervous.
That is exactly why I founded Women in Medicine, to build the community nobody mapped out for us.
Proud to work at UIH/UIC where I can lead with authenticity
More of this every week in Designing Modern Healthcare, my newsletter on fixing what’s broken and building what isn’t yet.
Which of these labels have you been called? Share in the comments. The last slide is for you.”
Other Articles Featuring Shikha Jain On OncoDaily.
