Call to Action from Six Organizations: What Can Members Do to Advance These Principles?

Co-author Maureen G. Phipps, MD, MPH, FACOG
Chief Executive Officer of ACOG

Medical professionals should intentionally address obstacles that prevent women physicians reaching their potential, urges ACOG CEO Maureen G. Phipps, MD, MPH, FACOG, and her counterparts at AAP and other leading medical organizations. This collaborative call to action targets the organizational and advocacy opportunities highlighted by the WEL consortium. It emphasizes the power of combined action:

“As stewards of medicine, the WEL partner organizations have substantial opportunities to foster important change. Leveraging their collective memberships of more than 400,000 physicians, they can advance an agenda for equitable leadership opportunities, advocate with one voice, and forge an inclusive healthcare workforce. Further, additional organizations are being recruited to the WEL consortium to broaden reach and enhance intersectionality of specialties.”

The call to action lists necessary changes in four areas:

• Equipping physicians with knowledge and skills to address equity, diversity, and inclusion; for example, by expanding access to leadership and career development programs grounded in equity for all physicians and physicians in training
• Implementing organizational change necessary to eliminate bias and promote equity, diversity, and inclusion, such as adopting flexible promotion and advancement criteria
• Identifying and implementing strategies to strengthen and diversify the health care workforce, including ensuring diversity on all committees, councils, and boards through policy and procedure development and mechanisms for accountability
• Advocating for policies and programs that advance equity and diversify the physician workforce, including transparent, equitable physician compensation

Read More: ACOG Celebrates Women in Medicine Month

Source: Women in Medicine journal supplement, Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, September 2021.