O’Toole co-edits book on women in pediatrics

O’Toole wants readers of the book to understand that the contributions of women who practice pediatrics have been tremendous during the past century. Women have been pivotal in the specialty’s clinical, research, educational and advocacy efforts and have helped shape the course of the specialty. She notes that pediatrics is in a very unique position to change the course of history.

“As a specialty that prides itself on promoting prevention, cultivating longstanding relationships and supporting the health and well-being of children and their families, there is no better group to lead the way in charting a new course for women in medicine than pediatrics. If a specialty that is predominantly women and prides itself in supporting women as mothers and caregivers cannot achieve this goal, who can? In a post-pandemic world, this work is more important than ever, and pediatrics must lead the way and create a standard for the rest of medicine to follow,” she says.

“However, this cannot be accomplished solely by women in the field,” O’Toole adds. “We need men to step up, acknowledge the bias and discrimination women face, and use their power, influence and position to help create a more equitable workplace for women in the specialty.”

O’Toole is not certain why a book like “Women in Pediatrics” has never been produced previously. Perhaps, in the past, no one ever actually wondered about the plight of women in pediatrics since women hold the large majority in the specialty, she says.

“Despite that, we still face inequity, discrimination and barriers. We are finally at a place that we are ready to dig into those issues and think about solutions. We have been examining and evaluating inequities in medicine unlike we have ever done before. The past few years has been an enlightening period for all those in medicine,” says O’Toole, who also serves as program director of the Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency program and program director of the IMSTAR (Internal Medicine Scholars Training for Academic Research) Medical Education Fellowship program.

The book includes three sections, first with a history of women in pediatrics. The second section looks at the current state of women in pediatrics including leadership, women of color, women in research, gender equity, childbearing, adoption, motherhood and eldercare by women in pediatrics. The third section discusses the future of women in pediatrics, including policies and programs to advance equity, allies in gender equity efforts, research, funding and publication for women, networking, mentorship, sponsorship, coaching, and career development activities, and supporting the health and wellbeing of women in pediatrics.

O’Toole and her co-editors wrote three chapters, “Stories of Early Leaders/Early Days of Women in Pediatrics,” “Networking Mentorship, Sponsorship, Coaching and Career Development Activities to Support Women in Pediatrics” and the book’s conclusion “Women in Pediatrics.” Five College of Medicine faculty were contributors to the book: Tina Cheng, MD, B.K. Rachford Memorial Chair in Pediatrics and chief medical officer at Cincinnati Children’s; Lou Edje, MD, associate dean for graduate medical education and professor in the departments of Family and Community Medicine and Medical Education; and Yemisi Jones, MD, assistant professor, Kelsey Logan, MD, professor, and Samir Shah, MD, professor, all in the Department of Pediatrics.

“I am so proud that when we created our contributing authorship teams for each chapter we focused on creating diverse teams that were for the most part comprised of folks early in their career paired with very senior leaders in pediatrics or other specialties,” O’Toole says. “It is our hope that these parings would allow for future mentoring and sponsorship opportunities for these teams. In fact, we are already seeing some really neat collaborations.”

Lead photo/Colleen Kelley/UC Creative + Brand