Authors: Meghan Etsey, Aliza Abid, Dr. Valerie Fouts-Fowler, Dr. Lauren Beene on behalf of AMWA Gender Equity Task Force

“Our Voices, Our Future” is a podcast by the Gender Equity Task Force of the American Medical Women’s Association that explores the challenges, stories, and successes of those working to advance gender equity in medicine. Through candid conversations with changemakers, advocates, and leaders, each episode dives into issues like pay gaps, leadership disparities, and inclusive workplace culture. Tune in to be inspired, informed, and empowered to take action. Full episode listening links are available below the transcription.

Meghan Etsey: Welcome to Our Voices, Our Future, the podcast where we amplify the voices driving change and equity within medicine and beyond. Brought to you by the Gender Equity Task Force, a committee of the American Medical Women’s Association. We’re here to challenge norms, break barriers, and ignite conversations that matter.

I’m Meghan Etsey, and in each episode, we’ll bring you candid discussions with leaders, change makers, and advocates working to create a more inclusive and just world. No more silence, no more waiting. You’re listening to Our Voices, Our Future.

Today, we’re welcoming Dr. Lauren Beene and Dr. Fouts-Fowler. 

Dr. Beene is a general pediatrician who has practiced in the Cleveland area. She’s a co-founder and executive director of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, and has been actively involved in reproductive rights advocacy. 

Dr. Beene also serves on several health-related boards and coalitions, including Protect Choice Ohio and Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights. In June 2025, Dr. Beene was terminated from University Hospitals for contacting fellow physicians about forming a union. University Hospital claimed the firings were due to improper use of proprietary data, while Dr. Beene and her supporters argued that the terminations were retaliatory and violated federal labor laws.

Dr. Valerie Fouts-Fowler is another pediatrician from University Hospitals who was fired alongside Dr. Beene. She has been recognized as one of University Hospitals’ top ranking providers and has been featured on Cleveland Magazine’s Best Doctors list. 

Dr. Fouts-Fowler and Dr. Beene have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that their firings were in retaliation for their union organizing activities, and we are so delighted to have the both of them here today to speak about their journey and to see how we can support them and others.

Thank you guys for being here.

Dr. Fouts-Fowler: Thank you for having us.

Dr. Beene: Yeah.

Meghan Etsey: Could you each just share a little bit about your journey into medicine and pediatrics? What inspired you to pursue this path, and kind of what keeps you passionate about patient care?

Dr. Beene: Sure. I’ll go first. I’m Lauren Beene, Dr. Beene. Thank you for having us here.

Yeah so I’ll say, Val and I, have a fairly similar story, which I think a lot of general pediatricians often have a sort of a similar story. But I was not a traditional medical student or pre-medical student. I thought I wanted to be a journalist.

Then I became more interested in science and medicine as time went on and ended up going to medical school, which I loved. And I realized I really enjoyed pediatrics, really on my pediatrics rotation. It wasn’t what I had intended to do.

It wasn’t really even on my radar, but I just loved the positive atmosphere of pediatrics. Kids and their families are very hopeful, and it’s just a really nice environment to work. Also, I realized that there’s a lot of opportunities for advocacy in pediatrics, and I shouldn’t actually say it like that.

Pediatrics is advocacy. You know whenever you see a patient that’s a child, you’re part of the team that’s advocating for that patient, right? You’re trying to figure out what’s ailing them, if anything is ailing them, and figure out how to help them.

And that starts on an individual level in the exam room, but you start to see how society is breaking down as things are going wrong with your patients that show up into your office. And it’s easy for that desire to advocate for one person to become much bigger, and try to fix bigger problems in the community. And so I’ve found all of that to be really appealing, and I haven’t looked back.

Dr. Fouts-Fowler: We do have, so I’ll go next Valerie Fouts-Fowler, and we do have a similar start to, because I didn’t initially think about going into medicine. I knew I wanted to work with children, but I actually wanted to be an art artist, and I started college as an art major. But I love the science of medicine.

I’ve always, I grew up in a science household, so I was kind of always there. And I went into pediatrics because I’ve always believed that caring for kids is one of the most meaningful ways to make a difference. I love their honesty.

They show up as themselves. They don’t have preconceived thoughts. They are resilient, full of potential.

And I always enjoyed going to work. Patients are so much fun. They make you laugh.

I mean, they make you cry too. But what kind of inspires me is the trust that the patients, the families place in me alongside them through, you know, their life challenges, through milestones, through good and bad times. And what keeps me passionate really is, medicine is always changing. So I’m always learning. And that doctor-patient relationship is so important to me. The privilege of being a part of a child’s life is extremely rewarding.

And I can’t imagine doing anything else, honestly.

Meghan Etsey: Thank you guys for sharing that. So, can we go into a little bit more about before the events that had taken place this summer at University Hospitals, both of you were deeply involved in advocacy and professional organizations. 

Can you talk a little bit on how your work with reproductive rights and other health care advocacy has helped shape your perspectives on equity and fairness within medicine as a whole?

Dr. Beene: Sure. So I think when I was really involved in the reproductive freedom ballot measure in Ohio, I started an organization called Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights. And we had to start that organization because doctors didn’t really have an effective way to advocate to the degree and with the speed that was needed at the time.

When our patients had, when we had just experienced the Dobbs decision and suddenly our patients no longer had access to abortion and related medical care. And it was very clear that something that doctors needed to find another way to organize to try to help. And while there are many awesome institutions out there that do incredible work advocating for our patients and physicians ability to do, to do our jobs, provide our care for our patients.

Sometimes the organizations are so big, so powerful, and so old, and so just complex that it’s hard for them to quickly take necessary action. And the best way to do that, to advocate and take action is really to organize ourselves. And we did that when we started Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and that really got me interested in unionizing because, you know, forming a union is the same concept where doctors come together, organize ourselves, strengthen our voices together so we can get the things done.

We need to get done now.

Dr. Fouts-Fowler:  Huge part of being a physician, you know, you’re speaking up for your patients no matter their age. And my interest prior to unionizing was more in the marginalized populations. So, LGBQTA and neurodivergence.

I also really like working with pediatric mental health problems. And through all of that, I learned how important physicians working together was to improve patient outcomes. I saw how structural inequities, whether it’s gender-based, sexuality-based, financial, racial, directly affect health outcomes.

And that is a central part to delivering good care. And I think that, you know, prior to our unionizing, I was trying to work with as many health care providers as possible, because that felt like the easiest way to ensure good patient outcomes.

Meghan Etsey: So, could one of you kind of walk us through what happened at the University Hospitals from your perspective? What motivated you to begin the organization of the union efforts? And what challenges did you guys kind of encounter along the way of doing this?

Dr. Beene: Sure. So, I think that Val and I, we both worked for University Hospitals, a large, really wonderful academic medical institution, which is where we both trained and where we had both intended to pursue our careers you know indefinitely. But over the last 10 years or so, we’d both seen so many specialists leave, pediatric specialists leave Rainbow, which is a pediatric hospital of the University Hospitals where we trained.

And it was just one after the next people that we learned from that taught us how to be pediatricians when we were in residency and for me, medical school. People that I looked up to, you know, that were basically the ones who made the institution, right? Who are the people who make up the medical center?

And it just seemed like it was unending, this flooding of people out of the system. And while that was really depressing to watch, it got to the point where our patients were having trouble getting appointments within any kind of reasonable time frame. They’d have to wait, you know, several months to get an appointment with a specialist, if not a year.

There have been multiple times when entire departments have left Rainbow. And, you know, we just, I think it was about a year and a half ago, the pediatric urologists left UH and moved across the street to the Cleveland Clinic. So we were without urologists for a while, pediatric urologists for a while.

And it was just unacceptable. And so a group of us connected and started realizing that, you know, these problems that we were seeing from the vantage point, you know, Val and my vantage point as being general pediatricians, it was really, really the problem was that the front line voices of the physicians in the system had really lost their voice in the process. And people were leaving as a result of that.

And so that’s why we started organizing. And we wanted to and still plan to restore the physician voice for our patients in our profession. And really restore our medical community to what we know that it can be and should be and that our patients need it to be.

For me, I’ll say the challenge that we’ve been, you know, that’s been the biggest challenge for us is really that, you know, we are trying to organize physicians in a very corporate, very powerful system that does not want us to organize. Which is why we’re here, right? UH hired a union busting firm to stop us several months, at least, well, a few months before we were terminated.

Very clear that they were out to stop us. And you know, when we became more powerful and our power was starting to make positive differences, we were terminated in a way that I believe is illegal. And but, you know, we thought to ourselves, well, that’s truly not going to stop us because this is exactly why we’re organizing to form a union, is so that you can’t terminate people for organizing to strengthen their voice to improve patient care.

So really, it’s just, I think, accelerated our drive.

Meghan Etsey: So I think that from what we’ve heard from you guys already, you guys are amazing doctors, you’ve had awards, your patients love you, but can you kind of tell us how the community reacted, your patients, colleagues, people who support you in your careers to the news of you being fired? Were there any moments of unexpected support that came to you or different challenges that ended up standing out to you in this process?

Dr. Fouts-Fowler: I’ll start on that one. I mean, the community was absolutely outraged and the response has been unbelievable. It’s truly been very motivating because these are patients that we’ve cared for for years.

They are speaking out on our behalf. They’re angry, they’re scared. We started a petition to have us reinstated and we have over 7,000 signatures on that.

Our patients were calling UH so much that there were times when they couldn’t actually get through because there were so many people calling. We had various, and we continue to have various community events. We had postcard writing campaigns where our patients and their families came and they drew, with their kids, they drew their pictures and the parents wrote, you know, on the postcards, the Board of Directors, asking, you know, to let us have our jobs back and to share why they wanted us to, you know, get back to being able to practice.

And there are so many stories, but one of them, you know, I and Lauren will have all the same similar stories. But, you know, one of my patients said, you know, I was thanking them and they said, you’ve always fought for my child. Now it’s our turn to fight for you.

And that definitely, you know, that means a lot because, you know, I care so much about these patients and their families. And to hear that, you know, that they feel that way too is huge. And solidarity has been a, you know, a source of strength.

And our colleagues, you know, other physicians, you know, many of them have reached out to us one way or another. They’re scared. You know, a lot of them are very scared, but they kind of want to let us know that, you know, they’re on our side, but don’t necessarily want to be overly vocal, but that’s helped a lot.

And then one thing that’s completely blown my mind is the amount of political support that we have, you know, garnered. It’s been amazing to watch, you know, Ohio senators, Ohio House of Representatives, you know, multiple different union groups come together and write letters on our behalf and call the Board of Directors on our behalf and multiple things of, you know, that nature. My biggest challenge has been watching my patients suddenly not have access to us and how that has immediately impacted them.

I mean, that truly has been awful and rather devastating, but their support continues even three months after they’re still reaching out and supporting us and telling us not to give up the fight and stuff. So it’s been unbelievable.

Meghan Etsey: Incredible. So the next step, unfortunately, you guys have had to go through is finally get a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which is very significant. 

Can you guys kind of talk about the process and how you’ve navigated the different professional and emotional complexities that come with doing something like this?

Dr. Beene: Sure. Well so you know, I think, Val and I agree that we believe that University Hospitals fired us illegally. So in that situation where, you know, you feel as though your rights have been violated and you’ve been terminated illegally, especially in the context of unionizing, filing an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board is what you’re supposed to do.

You know, we have federal protection to organize as workers under the National Labor Relations Act. And when those rights are violated, you can fight back by filing an unfair labor practice complaint through the NLRB. So, you know, it makes sense to do that.

We have a kind of a duty to do that because we can’t let corporations, you know, fire people illegally. And it’s definitely not been easy on a personal level or a professional level, but it is absolutely necessary. And, you know, we’re both, we both feel very determined to, you know, move forward with our organizing, but also, you know, make a point that, like, this is what happened to us is much bigger than us.

You know, these are being fired. We can’t let the people running the hospital system get away with that. We can’t let it go, because if we, if they win, right, if they are able to stop us, stop our effort, then that will have a chilling effect everywhere for other workers organizing, especially other physicians organizing.

So we really, you know, part of, I think one of the things that’s helped me not get too down in the dumps about everything is just knowing that like, hey, we have a duty to keep fighting, keep fighting back for the sake of everybody else who’s trying to do what we’re doing, trying to organize their co-workers.

Meghan Etsey: So kind of looking at this experience in a broader context, what has it kind of revealed to you guys about the structural challenges that physicians, maybe especially women, face when kind of advocating for this change within medical institutions?

Dr. Fouts-Fowler: So I think it really reveals how deeply resistant to change these institutions are. I mean, the corporatization of medicine is a major problem, and they’re going to fight us hard. I thought about your question a lot actually. As far as from a woman’s standpoint in medicine, Dr. Amy Acton is running for Ohio governor, and she made a statement that I’m totally stealing, which is, don’t mistake kindness for weakness.

And I think as a woman in medicine, this really speaks to our challenge, because we tend to be nurturing and collaborative. Not that men aren’t, but when we speak up, we can be framed as being difficult. And I think that what happened to us shows just how vulnerable physicians are now that most of us are employed versus having our own practice.

What happened with Lauren and I, shows just how vulnerable our roles as physicians are. Nowadays, most physicians are employed instead of running their own business. And so it just goes to show that even with all our years of service, all of our strong patient relationships, that corporate medicine does not want us to reclaim our voice.

And that’s a major problem as who else is going to speak up for everybody, who else is going to talk for the patients.

Meghan Etsey: To kind of bounce off of that, what have you guys learned from this experience about being leaders, being advocates, standing up for your values within healthcare, and what are some insights that maybe you knew at the beginning of this long path that you guys have taken to advocate?

Dr. Beene: Yeah, I think that I’ve learned so much through this experience. But I think most importantly, what Val was just saying is just how important and how critical physician organizing really is. I knew that it was important for us to organize to protect our voice, but now I have a much deeper understanding of just how critical that is.

And you know it’s been very eye-opening, and I’ve learned that we really cannot let up on what we’re trying to accomplish.

And it’s just absolutely necessary. If we aren’t able to, you know, speak up for our patients by organizing ourselves, protecting our voice, who is going to? There isn’t anybody who is going to.

So I think that just kind of the critical nature of, you know, the why we must organize has become much more clear to me. And I think that in health care, we go to medical school and we learn about how to treat patients. We learn about clinical medicine, science, and just communication.

And you know, the things that you need to do in order to take care of a patient one-on-one, whether it’s an exam room, an emergency room, operating room. But we don’t really learn about how to protect the structures that are in place that allow us to do our jobs. And I think that there’s been a lot of effort to chip away at what were necessary structures that we took for granted that made it so that doctors could help patients and the patients could get the care that they needed.

And so I think that we really need to also know that we have to advocate not just for our patients, but also to protect a system that functions in a way that allows our patients to get the care that they deserve and that has been on a level much greater than I would have ever anticipated.

Meghan Etsey: So for any listeners who may want to advocate for change in the workplace or communities, what kind of guidance would you give? How can these medical professionals support equity, safety, and inclusion while still navigating these institutional obstacles that we have?

Dr. Fouts-Fowler: I would say working together and forming relationships is the major thing that you can do. As physicians, I think we naturally center our advocacy on patient care and it’s the strongest common ground we have. But I think it’s very important to not underestimate the power of stories.

I mean, when families and frontline workers speak together, it’s harder for institutions to ignore, dismiss. The obstacles are real. I mean, organizing obstacles are real.

And that’s why medical professionals really have to come together. And the only way to support equity, safety, and inclusion is to work together and speak together. And remembering that this isn’t radical care, this is responsible care.

And it’s true, if everybody is putting the patients first, it’s not hard to see what the next steps are to do.

Meghan Etsey: So what gives you guys hope moving forward for both yourselves and the circumstances that you’re in now and just the broader movement of equity and medicine? How do you envision a more supportive and just system in the future?

Dr. Beene: For me, I would say that what really gives me hope is I know that what we’re doing is the right thing. And I know that because of the incredible outpouring of community support that we’ve experienced from our patients to local leaders, political figures, our colleagues that reach out to us and say, thank you for standing up, thank you for using your voice. That has been so powerful that I know that we’re doing the right thing and we’re being helped because we’re doing the right thing, right?

We’re not fighting this alone, like Val said. We have this growing community that all sees why we’re organizing and wants to help us. And that really gives me a lot of hope.

And I think that we also have a responsibility beyond the organizing or institution, like yes, we need to organize our institution so that we can restore it to what we know it once was, where our patients can get the care that we know that they deserve. But we’re also setting an example for other hospitals, other medical professionals, other workers to look at and say, hey, look, they did this despite crazy odds, despite very powerful institutions trying to stop them. And knowing that we have this duty to a larger cause of just showing that, look, you can organize, you can strengthen your voice, and you do that by coming together and building communities, by forming unions.

And knowing that that is possible and that we can accomplish that, I think is also what gives me hope.

Meghan Etsey: Thank you so much, guys, for being here and for sharing your story and advice that you guys have kind of brought together along the way of this journey that you’re going through. For anybody who would like to support Dr. Bean and Dr. Fouts-Fowler, there are links in the description to their email and also to the form to sign the petition to get them reinstated. Thank you all for listening.

That’s a wrap on this episode of Our Voices, Our Future. We hope today’s conversation inspired you, challenged you, and reminded you, the power of raising your voice. The fight for equity doesn’t stop here.

Join us in the movement. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you love this episode, share it with someone who needs to hear it.

Until next time, stay bold, stay vocal, and keep the conversation going. This is Our Voices, Our Future.

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About the Authors

Meghan Etsey, MS4

Meghan Etsey is a fourth year medical student from St. George’s University. She has a Bachelors of Arts in Biology and a Bachelors of Arts in Nutrition and Dietetics from Bluffton University in Bluffton, Ohio. She served as the President of the St. George’s University’s Women in Medicine chapter in St. George, Grenada where she expanded relationships with the community and worked towards educating women and helping the youth. She is also a member of the Gender Equity Task Force and Sex and Gender Health Collaborative Committees within the American Medical Women’s Association. When she is not pursuing medicine, you can find her with her friends and family on different road trips and adventures exploring the world. 

 Aliza Abid, Medical Student

Aliza Abid is a medical student with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her academic interests focus on gastroenterology and oncology, with particular emphasis on the gut–brain axis and microbiome mediated pathways. She has contributed to literature based analyses examining microbiome dysregulation in gastrointestinal cancers and postoperative outcomes in pancreatic surgery. This work has strengthened her interest in the intersection of microbial health, systemic disease, and clinical outcomes. Aliza is committed to translating emerging scientific evidence into equitable and patient-centered care. Aliza also served as a Community Volunteer Leader in Central/Western MA with the American Red Cross, where she coordinated local outreach efforts and received a Red Cross Volunteer Award for her contributions to community service. She is also committed to advancing mentorship and representation for women in medicine through her involvement with the American Medical Women’s Association. Outside of academics, she enjoys exploring cafes, planning her next trip,  spending time with friends and family, or unwinding with a new Netflix show. 

Formatting, publication management, and editorial support for the AMWA GETF Blog by Vaishnavi J. Patel, DO