Authors: Joanna Georgakas, Aliza Abid, Meghan Etsey, Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber
“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.
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Joanna Georgakas: Welcome back to Dr. And, a podcast on the Multidimensional Women in Medicine. I’m your host, Joanna Georgakas, and today we’ll be chatting with Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber is a professor of clinical internal medicine and pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, an active member and past president of the American Medical Women’s Association, and a writer for the Adolescent Medicine Review course. Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber is passionate about the impact of healthy lifestyles and volunteers to speak on both local and national radio and television programs to help advocate for health promotion. Today we’ll be talking with Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber about her advocacy work on gender equity.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber, thank you so much for coming in to chat with us today.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Great. I appreciate being asked.
Joanna Georgakas: I first met you through AMWA’s gender equity task force, one of your passion projects and something you advocate a lot for.
Can you tell us a little bit more about why gender equity matters?
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Well, I think for many folks I kind of feel as if equity is just that we’re all equal and as long as we are paid the same, then that’s fine. And I’ve even had some people kind of ask me, Teresa, why does this matter? I mean, if you just work hard enough, “people will recognize you.”
And I think when I heard that, I kind of laughed and I thought, oh, if only that were true. First of all, we know that we’re not paid equally. And in fact, there was just an article that came out from the American Academy of Pediatrics September 10th, in which it noted that even though women physicians make up 70% of the practicing pediatricians.
Women physicians make $8,000 less on average than their male counterparts even taking into account full-time, part-time, academic, non-academic, private projects, etc. So we know that firstly, there is no equity in salary or pay among physicians in this country. And secondly, equity matters a lot, especially when you’re thinking about leadership.
You know, approximately 30% of the graduating class of medical school when I graduated 30 years ago were women, but were not 30% of the deans, 30% of the chairs, 30% of the leaders in healthcare, etc etc. So it isn’t just about a pipeline, and I think equity comes down to having the ability, having the opportunities to reach your full potential. And if you’re not included in the conference room, if you’re not part of the board room, if we’re not there, then we lose a huge potential for women to be as active and involved and to have those positions of leadership.
Joanna Georgakas: I completely agree too, and as medical students are like, I think now my class year was the first year to have a little bit more than 50% of the matriculated class be female.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Mm-hmm.
Joanna Georgakas: But even then, there’s still not as many people sitting at the table. So we’re getting women there. But even in ob gyn and pediatrics, like you mentioned, where the majority is women, there’s still inequity in terms of pay gap and other things.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Absolutely and that’s partly why the original gender equity task force was put together many years ago, and it was put together partly because of the discrepancy in the pay gap.
One of our former leaders, when she was a chair of ENT and one of her trainees came with the contract and said, here’s what they’re offering me. What do you think? And she looked at that and she realized, here’s a guy just coming out of her residency program and he was gonna be making more than she was as the chair as the chief.
Joanna Georgakas: Wow.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: And she said, wait a minute, you know, and actually she eventually did win a lawsuit against the institution. But, you know, having transparency in terms of salary makes a huge difference. But also having opportunities so that you can get to levels of leadership to make those differences makes a big difference.
Joanna Georgakas: When did you first start getting involved in the gender equity task force and being an advocate?
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Well, you know, it probably even starts long before being a physician. I think when I was in undergrad and hearing, well, you can’t be a mother and a doctor. I mean, people still said that back then. It was really disappointing to hear that, but at the same time I thought, you know, I don’t think they tell the guys you can’t be a father and a doctor, you know?
So I think it just made me a little bit more determined. And at first I just said well, I don’t give a hoot, I’m not having any kids. Now I’m married and have three grown children, so luckily I didn’t listen to those kinds of comments, but, I think that, you know, recognizing that there were distinct differences, recognizing that when people looked at you, they saw somebody who couldn’t be as much as because of my gender and, and recognizing that helped me to look for other ways that we can make that difference. We have been working on creating not only the gender equity task force where people can come with problems and we can help kind of steer them in the right direction and we can put articles together and we could do write papers and stuff, but we also wanted to work individually with people because,, we recognize, for example, that if you are not making the salary that your colleague is making for the same work, you get a little disgruntled. There was a recent article that came out from the AAMC that noted that 40% of practicing women physicians go down to either part-time or leave medicine within six years of completing their residency. And then all just because of burnout, it is partly because not getting the recognition that you deserve, you know, having to do more than one job.
Not making the adequate salary that you should be making. I mean, all of those kinds of things lead to the decision to step back from medicine. And I think the answer is not only getting more women into medical school, but keeping us practicing and part of that is because of pay inequities.
Joanna Georgakas: Absolutely. I think what struck me a lot too is when you said people telling you that you can’t be like a mother and a doctor and how. That conversation today. I know for me and listening to my peers who are a woman in medicine at the medical school level, talk about, well, I can’t do this kind of medicine and be a mom.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Oh, absolutely.
Joanna Georgakas: So the conversation is shifted a little bit, but it’s still there.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: And it comes up frequently. I mean, it’s interesting that there was a study back in the late 1990s early 2000s, so it was quite some time ago, but it was looking at high school valedictorians. And what were their ideas about what their life would be like? And so these are the, the top of the top, the cream of the crop kids coming outta high school and the female valedictorians were looking for careers that made almost $25,000 a year or less. And the reason was because, well, I’m worried about having a family and a career.
So they automatically were taking themselves down a peg before they even got started. Unfortunately, I think that still happens now. We have medical students saying well, I don’t know if I wanna be in this type of subspecialty. I’m worried about the work life balance, but then you take yourself out of what you really wanna do.
When the answer should be, we should be understanding and changing the system to make it more user-friendly.
Joanna Georgakas: Do you have any suggestions on how we can work to change the system?
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Back in 2011, the IU National Center of Excellence started a program called the Negotiation Divide about Gender and Salary.
And we have utilized this and taken it around the country with some of our American, medical Women’s Association branches. And the idea was that if we could help our individual physicians and scientists to understand the skills of negotiation, things would be better. And, to a certain extent, that’s true, but I think what I’ve realized after all this time is that working with the individual is extraordinarily important, but we have to understand those systems that they’re being involved with and work to change those systems. You know, for example, here at IU School of Medicine, we have fewer women faculty than many other institutions in the country. So, why is that?
How can we make that situation better? How can we get more of our women into positions of leadership? It’s gonna take more than just the individual woman trying to figure it out for herself. It’s gonna take more of a team and a concerted effort, and that’s partly what AMWA is doing. The American Medical Women’s Association has been very impactful for careers for women physicians, since day one. You know, we started back in 1915 when Bertha Van Houston graduated from medical school and wanted to do a residency in practice, and then eventually wanted to get involved in the medical associations over time and they said, well, we didn’t take women.
Oh. So she said, kinda forget you. I’ll make my own organization, which she did. But you realize too that at that time women coming out of medical school had to be apprenticed and if you didn’t have somebody take them in and give them a quote, kind of a residency thing, they wouldn’t be able to practice.
And you know, just as impactful as that is, was then, is it now? Being involved. I know that there have been times when I’ve been able to collaborate with people around the country. When I reach out to one of the medical school deans and say, I have this idea, and they can kinda reach back and say yes, well, here’s how we can work on it together.
I mean, you realize the power of that networking that we need so desperately.
Joanna Georgakas: So how did you first become involved in AMWA? Was it through the gender equity task force or through another group?
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Well, actually I got involved when I was in medical school and then more importantly as a faculty. And as a faculty, I realized that in order for me to get promoted within my institution, I needed to have a national reputation. And at some of the promotion and tenure meetings, they kept commenting on that. And I thought, I’m a clinician educator. I see patients, and I work with my own medical students.
How does that get me a national presence and getting involved with AMWA kind of helped me to create that national presence, becoming the national president, but also creating programs that reach across outside of my state and outside of my own institution. Programs like negotiating the Divide and which we’ve kind of taken all around.
Also, we did a research project that was partly funded through the GM Volvo Fund with the American Medical Association Women in Medicine Group, that program, we specifically were looking at emotional distress in physician suicidality. And with funding that group, we were able to look at over 400 women from a very cross-sectional representation from around the country, and found that there was actually a significant percentage of women physicians who had felt significant emotional distress and had contemplated suicide.
Joanna Georgakas: Wow.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: So that’s led to some changes in the way that AMWA looks at things, but it also has made some changes across the country as we’ve pushed to. Help institute more wellness programs and work on burnout and incorporate those kinds of activities into every, every leadership program and in every mentorship webinar and in the annual meetings across the country.
But it was being involved with AMWA that gave me that ability to network across the country and to have, a dean of a medical school sitting on one side of me and a family medicine person from Washington on the other side and being able to interact with women physicians from a multidisciplinary programs, but I think it’s also been helpful for me to be able to network for others.
Joanna Georgakas: Absolutely. I think the power of a network, especially within AMWA is so incredible. I know for me it’s helped me connect with a ton of different women across different specialties, including you, to broadcast different stories of women in medicine for this very podcast.
I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind just elaborating a little bit more on examples you may have of the use of such networks?
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: I had some colleagues that had called and said, well, you know, I’m being asked, or I am looking at this position as a medical director for a breast center, and I don’t know what to ask for. I mean, what do people make? And so knowing people that were medical directors of breast centers around the country, some from medicine, from surgery, I was able to put that person in touch with two or three others so that she could just ask and talk and say, you know, if you were looking at this position, what would you want?
And that’s the kind of things, that’s the kind of networking that we need on a regular basis. And it’s that kind of transparency that you wouldn’t necessarily always get from other folks, and you wouldn’t really know where to reach out to.
Joanna Georgakas: For people like tuning in, how do you recommend that our listeners start to get involved if that’s something they’re interested in?
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: I mean, so one of the things honestly, is being involved with a woman in a medicine group. I think being involved with AMWA is really helpful. I. Just partly because it’s multidisciplinary and you can get folks from a lot of different areas, but you’ll be surprised, even as a student or a pre-med or a new faculty, that when you just reach out and you say, I’d like to be involved in a committee, for example, in the chair of the advocacy committee for AMWA.
Oh my goodness. I mean, we’re writing things all the time. We’re calling our senators and it was interesting because I had to write out some things and then my advocacy committee will kind of send, you know, change it a little bit and send it to their own representatives or senators or put it into the newspaper. And I’m always surprised when they’ll go, gosh, I’ve never done this before. I’m like, oh my goodness, come on along with us and you’ll be doing this all the time. And, and you don’t realize what impact that has
One of the students I was working with recently wanted to change the Good Samaritan law in the state of Indiana. So, he wrote out some really fabulous talking points. So I said okay, well here, you send this to your rep and I’ll send it to my rep. Well, my representative actually took that information and went to the state with it. And they’re looking at writing a different bill and changing things all because of the information that he put together.
I said, you know, it actually doesn’t take a lot when you are a physician in power and being a medical student or being a new physician. You are part of a very elite group. There are not a lot of folks like you. And when you say something, especially when it comes about for health or physician wellbeing, your words are taken seriously.
If you are a listener out there and you wanna know, what do I need to do? Oh my goodness. First of all, join an organization that you feel comfortable with and AMWA if you’re a woman physician, or even if you’re not, my husband’s a lifetime member of AMWA and one of the most ardent supporters of women in medicine.
Join a group like that and just get involved and, and even if it’s just peripherally, even if you join as a member and you just read the news things every now and again, and you call your legislator about topics or you help us write a letter to the editor, or you act as a spokesperson. Or even if you are just there on the back line saying, you know, wait a minute.
So, let me give you another example. One of the medical students worked with me over the summer on a program we call, “Diversity on the Walls.” Okay? Relatively simple. She recognized that, on the walls of our institution, I don’t see many women physicians or scientists. So we actually looked at every single wall in the School of Medicine at our Indianapolis campus for IU, and we found that there are zero portraits of women physicians or scientists on the walls of the school. Now, we’ve had our school since about 1908, and we had our first graduated students, and I think we had our first female faculty in 1909.
I mean, there’ve been women involved with this institution for a very very long time. But there are no women physicians or scientists on the walls. So, our next step is now taking it to our institution because I don’t think that it was ever purposeful to exclude anybody, but it certainly wasn’t part of the thought process.
And that includes actually our underrepresented minority faculty. We have none on our walls. So our aim now is to change that. And you know, in some ways you might think that is it a big deal? Well, you know, when you are the person walking the halls, when you look up at who are the leaders and you don’t see anybody that looks like you, it’s kind of a, a little microaggression. It’s kind of a little unconscious bias.
Joanna Georgakas: I remember when I first graduated from college, I actually took a job as a research assistant at McLean Hospital. And it was kind of similar. There were not a lot of portraits on the wall, but they have a whole hall dedicated to females or women in medicine.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Really nice.
Joanna Georgakas: And I remember walking through that and feeling really empowered and looking and reading their stories. I can tell you just from that experience, like it definitely does make a big difference and I was really inspired.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Oh, good. Well, I’m glad, and that’s what we hope to do now, at least even within our own institution, is to be able to put those kinds of messages out there, change the dynamic, change what people see, so that little unconscious bias isn’t there.
I mean, think of when we just had our first women in space walk, you know, two women face finally, you know, an all women crew. I mean, oh my gosh. And what that means to those young kids coming up when they can look up and say, well, yeah, that could be me. What an amazing thing, I am looking forward to the day.
Honestly, when there are no more firsts, there are no more first women presidents, first women senators, first women, deans. I mean, I. What a time that will be when there is equity amongst all, and that anybody, regardless of your sex or gender or your racial ethnicity or your religion, can strive to be in a position where they can make change and where they can impact others.
That one of these days, it will come true. But, we still have a long way to go because there are so many firsts that need to happen.
Joanna Georgakas: It sounds like to me, for people listening that it’s all about having an idea and not thinking of yourself as someone who can do something and can make a change, even if it’s as small as, thinking about putting more pictures of people who look like you on the walls or more representative.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Absolutely. And it’s partly that of our own individual, which I think is really important, but it’s also about looking around us and saying, how do we change the system to make it more even and to give people a leg up because we know that none of us did this by ourselves. You know?
I mean, I like to think that I’ve worked hard and all those kinds of things. But quite honestly, if it wasn’t for all the people that I’ve met along the way. All of those folks who said, no, I think you can do this. You know, even when I was in college and wasn’t even thinking about medicine, and I had somebody who beat on me like every day, and he kept telling me, yes, you could go, why don’t you think about going to medical school?
You know, look at that guy. He’s not that smart. Why don’t you? and it really took the whole summer of him going, why not you? That I kind of started to think too, well, why not me? And all along the way, having people that supported you whether it be American Business University’s Business Women’s Association that gave me scholarships when I was in college knowing that there was a group behind me that was like, you go girl.
And I was like, Oh Okay! I can’t let them down. And, no matter what it is, thinking that yes you can, but it may not all happen today. It may take us some time to kind of get there. And I feel incredibly important to be a part of organizations that are working to make those changes happen.
Back in the mid 1990s, AMWA was very impactful on helping to change the curriculum in medical schools and helping to incorporate more women’s health into the curriculums on a regular basis. Now, we’re a part of looking at sex and gender and working to include a sex and gender lens on everything as it comes to medical education, as well as in leadership.
So we want our medical students across the country, regardless of their background, to when they think about a medical problem. Say for example, depression instead of it starting as a 30 years old woman with depression, we want it to be a 30 years old present with depression. Now, what question would you have if it was a male vs a female? Well, what if it was a transgender? You know, how do the medications differ between the sexes and how does that impact their ability to not only get the medicine, take the medicine, you know, but have it work within their bodies? Unfortunately, even through 2018, 80% of the patients involved in clinical trials are still men.
Joanna Georgakas: Right.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: We can’t keep taking information that’s done in male subjects and transferring it to women and thinking that it’s gonna be the same because it’s not. And that then leads us to have fewer opportunities, fewer drugs, fewer procedures, and devices. Because if most of the work is done in a male population and then it goes out into the world where 50% of the population’s women, and for some reason it doesn’t work well, then it gets pulled off the market, it’s not coming back.
Well, maybe if we had looked at it in the early stages, we would’ve recognized that this specific product or this specific drug worked better in men and we marketed it for men. It would’ve perhaps saved a lot of lives, but instead it gets pulled off the market because it doesn’t work in half of the population.
I mean, those are the kinds of things that even though like the Society of Women’s Health Research started to make some huge changes back in the mid 1990s and brought this to light, we still have a long ways to go, as we just don’t have enough participation within clinical trials and we have to make it more of an emphasis because that’s where we get equity.
Joanna Georgakas: Absolutely. And I know that you do a lot of advocacy work outside of AMWA too, with different groups and even promoting lifestyle choices on TV and radio stations.
How do you maintain that balance between? You’re a clinical educator, you’re an advocate, and you’re practicing clinical medicine every day?
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Well, every day you wake up and you kind of think, what am I supposed to be today? But the other thing honestly is, it’s part of what helps to keep me going. And when you look at the data on burnout, and I hate that term burnout, but okay, dissatisfaction, maybe it’s, it’s actually shown that advocacy helps with dissatisfaction and burnout because it gives you something bigger than yourself.
So I do need clinical time. I love my clinical time, and at the end of my clinical day, I can check off the list, how many patients I saw, how many labs I looked at. You know, there’s a sense of satisfaction with that. But when I go before a larger audience and I think about how I can make changes within the state or within my community or nationally, that really helps me to kind of see that the work that I’m doing locally has a bigger impact.
You know, for example, negotiating and salary. I mean, recognizing that there is a difference, that there is a divide, and we have to figure out a way of crossing that, whether it’s with an individual person by going over a contract or with an institution about incorporating more women and underrepresented minorities onto their committees.
Regardless, all of those things can have an impact, and though they don’t affect my bottom line. In terms of monetary, it certainly impacts my bottom line in terms of satisfaction. One of my physicians, for example, was negotiating a salary or negotiating a contract as a new physician. And she was told from the very beginning, we don’t negotiate on salary which is okay, but there are many other things.
So what we worked on for her, okay if they say they don’t want to negotiate on salary. What about,it is very important for them to have their physicians be board certified. Well, why not ask them for an additional two weeks right before the boards? It’s paid time off specifically to study for the boards so that you don’t get deducted from your vacation time or CME time, but they then get a board certified physician. And so she brought that back to them and she got that along with the signing bonus.
Joanna Georgakas: Well, that’s something.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Even when they say we don’t negotiate, there are ways for you to kind of put some things in there. So, that I think is really important on the individual level.
But then on a more national level or so, it’s doing these programs at various events, but it’s also helping women to kind of understand what they can change within their own place of business. IU, for example, just started having a paid maternity leave policy in July of 2017. Now, that didn’t come just from me or, or just from my small group, but it came because over time the women physicians faculty kept pressing for it.
And the institution at one point recognized that actually having paid maternity leave for their faculty and staff can be really impactful on keeping patients and keeping their faculty healthy and happy and wanting to still work there. And that’s one of the other projects that we’ve been working on too, is paid maternity leave because only 12% of employed women across the country have paid maternity leave and that significantly impacts our ability to raise their children and also to their own positions of leadership and power, just another program that we’ve been working on. But there’s so much to do and so whether it’s at a local level where you contact your local administrator, your state representative, or whether it’s in a more organized fashion with a group, either way you can make such a difference and we do encourage you to reach out and do that, or if you’re not sure, contact the organizations that are locally involved, whether it’s be your state organization, your state medical association, or if you’re a woman physician, woman medical student, pre-med even, think about working with us with AMWA.
Joanna Georgakas: Yeah, absolutely.
And just a note to end on, do you have any advice for those listening in on pursuing passions outside of medicine, whether it be advocacy or something else they’re passionate about?
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Yes. Oh, keep that passion and find a way of being able to utilize that even if it’s in a very small way while you’re in school. You know, there was a recent article from a past dean from UPenn who suggested that medical students shouldn’t get involved in social things and they should just study.
Well, you know, you can’t just study all the time. First and foremost, you need to graduate. because we need you all done. And we need you all practicing. That’s true! So first and foremost, get the education done, whether it be residency or medical school or going back for your MBA, get your education done.
But along the way, find things that you can do in short spurts that help you to be fulfilled. And that could be writing small articles or writing together cases, or even getting together with a group. A group to cook together. We had a group of students who would get together like once every couple of months or so, and share a meal. Well, you can talk about healthy eating.
You can talk about the things that are bothering you and that also can be very impactful. So, you know, you find out what helps you, you find out the little things that you can do. We have a lot of our medical students that are very involved with our state medical association and it’s just good for them to come and see what us old folks are doing and that we still love what we’re doing.
And that helps them to kind of be involved. And when they write a resolution and it gets passed, it gives them a sense of accomplishment. So there are so many ways that you can be helpful, even if it’s just volunteering. Our AMWA students help us significantly with the programs that we do through the Center of Excellence in Women’s Health.
We have a program called Women’s Wellness on Wheels, and so they come and participate in our events. They do health screenings for us. They help give Paps and Pelvics for low income women and just doing that every now and again gives you that sense of accomplishment and makes you say, oh yeah, now I know why I’m here.
So whatever it takes for you to keep your motivation, whatever it takes for you to keep your passion and your love of the medicine that you’re doing, that’s what you need to be doing.
Joanna Georgakas: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
And for our listeners who wanna hear more about you, where can they find out more information about what you do?
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Oh, absolutely. You can always go to the AMWA website, which is amwa.org or you can find me at IU National Center of Excellence or Women’s Health, or you can send me an email at [email protected]. I’m always happy to chat about these things and happy to be helpful. Join us with AMWA. Join the gender equity task force or the advocacy task force, or look to come to our annual meeting, which is gonna be hosted at Indianapolis this year.
It’s gonna be a lot of fun. So, join us anytime.
Joanna Georgakas: Awesome. And I’ll put your information in links below too for those who are listening and are driving maybe, and aren’t able to write that down.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Great.
Joanna Georgakas: I wanted to thank you again, and thanks for the listeners tuning in.
Dr. Teresa Rohr-Kirchgraber: Great. I appreciate being asked.
Joanna Georgakas: If you’re interested in learning more about the podcast or being featured on an upcoming episode, you can find our contact information in the show notes.
For more ways to be engaged in the community and meet more incredible women in medicine, join the American Medical Women’s association at amwa-doc.org. Hope to see you at the next conference, and for now, have a great day. And don’t forget to light a spark of positivity in whatever you may do today.
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 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.