Strategies for Women Leaders in Medicine
Insight and advice from Foundation President Dr. Laraque-Arena
In order to address the challenges facing future generations, ethically focused and visionary scientist leaders are needed. In their specific role as leaders in the health professions (medical, nursing, public health, health sciences, social sciences, health law, etc.) women must come equipped with strategic insight as they aim to create a better and more equitable world. The framing of our policy objectives is grounded in history — lessons learned and applied to improve health across the lifespan for all.
Strategic advice for the next generation of women leaders is in no short supply. And Foundation President Danielle Laraque-Arena, MD, FAAP will be speaking on this topic and more at our lectureship event with the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) titled “Women in Medicine: Transforming Healthcare” this fall. The event will be a conversation about leadership of women in the medical field with both Dr. Laraque-Arena and Karen J. Nichols, DO, MA, MACOI, FACP, CS.
Building strategic partnerships with organizations like AMWA will be a big focus of Dr. Laraque-Arena’s presidency at the Foundation. “We are both committed to promoting women’s leadership in medicine,” she explained. “This partnership can be a powerful force for the future of medicine.”
To Dr. Laraque-Arena, the future of medicine requires leaders who have a global perspective paired with a drive to have a local impact. These two dynamics are interconnected, and leveraging technology in an effective way will lead to better outcomes around the world and in our local environments. Dr. Laraque-Arena emphasizes that women leaders are in a unique position to define the challenges we face collectively and leverage talents to find solutions.
Dr. Laraque-Arena has spoken about this topic before and it is a key theme to the strategic future of the Foundation. Technology is changing the field of medicine and advances in big data as well as data analytics and predictive analytics will continue to help medical leaders find better solutions to medicine’s biggest challenges. That technology, and the advances in artificial intelligence, must be framed by socially conscious use that supports educational and research integrity. Technology will continue to influence and change the way the medical field approaches problems big and small in the future, and women leaders — and trainees in medicine and STEM — who adapt their skills to the tools at their disposal may have the potential to have the greatest impact.
The health of communities, health equity, and addressing the needs of previously marginalized communities are other areas of focus for the Foundation. Dr. Laraque-Arena has intimate knowledge and experience in these areas. She was born in Haiti and came to the United States in the second grade. She completed her medical studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, internship and residency at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania. As a Robert Wood Johnson Fellow at this same institution, Dr. Laraque-Arena researched lead poisoning and calcium status in Black preschoolers.
Driven to address the health needs of disadvantaged communities, she accepted her first academic position at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University and Harlem Hospital Center where she would spend more than a decade. In the late 1980s and 1990s, she addressed three of Harlem’s greatest health threats: the epidemic of firearm-related deaths and injuries, local and global crisis of HIV/AIDS, and the devastation caused by crack/cocaine. These experiences helped shape her career as an educator and researcher.
“I am keenly aware of the role of poverty and structural racism as determinants in the health of populations,” she says. “Providing comprehensive care in the community is a priority because we can see how we can change people’s lives.” That mission is inextricably linked to the training of the next generation of a diverse group of women researchers.
More than anything, when thinking about the women leaders in medicine of the future, Dr. Laraque-Arena encourages them to “choose medicine because you love it.” If the problems facing the world today spark your energy and your creativity, the medical community needs you.