career. My name is Judy Yee, and I'm from Monashire-Einstein in New York City, and co-moderator of this session with Dr. Charlotte Young-Hing. And I'm pleased to present to you the first speaker, Dr. Young-Hing, who is from the University of British Columbia, where she's the Vice Chair of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. And the title of her talk is The Mid-Career Leaky Pathway. Dr. Young-Hing. Thank you so much. By the end of this presentation, you will be able to describe the phenomenon of leaky pathway, suggest some of the reasons for the leak, understand why the leak is bad for radiology and our patients, and you will be able to propose some potential solutions. The concept of the leaky pathway addresses attrition among professionals from underrepresented groups as they progress in their careers. It signifies gaps in the intended route for talent to move upwards, resulting in the loss of diverse individuals. Early career focuses on establishing oneself and building a reputation. In mid-career, attention shifts to refining clinical expertise and gaining recognition. This phase, typically 10 to 15 years post-training, is a critical juncture where underrepresented groups, particularly women and minority physicians, experience significant attrition. The mid-career leak leads to the loss of experienced radiologists at a crucial career stage. It is important to retain these mid-career radiologists to further develop their skills, contribute to research, assume leadership roles, and ultimately become senior radiologists. A study published in Radiology in 2022 showed that women radiologists are initially more likely to choose careers in academic radiology compared to men. Gender representation then varies across different academic ranks and leadership roles. Of all academic radiologists, women represent 38% of instructors, 31% of assistant professors, 28% of associate professors, and 22% of professors. There's a notable drop when it comes to department chair positions, of which women only represent 17%. Additionally, a persistent gender imbalance in research authorship exists, with senior authorship by women remaining lower compared to first authorship over the past two decades. This leadership disparity is observed throughout medicine. The 2018-2019 report from the Association of American Colleges, titled The State of Women in Academic Medicine, and a similar 2021 report by the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, both demonstrate that while equal or more women than men enroll in and graduate from medical school, the representation of full-time women faculty in medicine is only 41% to 42%. This underrepresentation becomes even more pronounced in higher leadership positions, where only 25% to 28% of full professors and only 18% of department chairs and deans are women. In both countries, the majority of faculty at the lowest rank of instructor are women. Only 13% of full-time women faculty in the U.S. come from underrepresented minority groups, with the highest proportion also found at the lowest ranks of assistant professor and instructors. When considering career advancement after seven years, men advance at a higher rate compared to women. Women and men faculty have notably different perceptions of opportunities provided by medical schools. 65% of women faculty believe their medical schools offer equal opportunities, whereas 85% of men share this perception. Women faculty leaders are often found in roles focused on diversity, faculty development, and student affairs, which highlights their active involvement in fostering inclusivity and supporting the academic community. However, women are less commonly represented in leadership positions associated with clinical affairs and research, areas which may be valued more by institutions. Departments with a higher proportion of full-time women faculty have more women in leadership roles, indicating a correlation between women's representation in faculty and their advancement to leadership positions. A 2020 study published by the New England Journal of Medicine, including 559,098 graduates from 134 U.S. medical schools from 1979 to 2013, revealed troubling patterns regarding the advancement of women in academic medicine. The study examined two things. First, they compared the expected promotion rates of women based on the proportion of women in each graduating class with the actual promotion rates. Second, they looked at the differences between early and late cohorts. In both the early and late cohorts, a persistent disparity in the promotion of women to higher positions and their appointment as department chairs was found compared to men. These findings reveal a concerning trend. Fewer women continue to be promoted to associate or full professor positions or are appointed as department chairs. Women constitute the majority of healthcare workers and should therefore be appropriately represented in healthcare leadership. However, the progress of women in global health leadership has stalled. Women hold only 25% of senior healthcare leadership positions around the world. And although there has been an increase in the representation of women leaders in Fortune 500 healthcare companies, the situation is different for women ministers of health, where the number of women leaders has declined. There is need for concerted efforts to address the gender gap and ensure greater representation of women in all health leadership. So why do women and minorities experience mid-career attrition? They often lack institutional support and may face discrimination and unconscious biases that create hostile work environments and limit career opportunities. Finding career development support and advancement can be a struggle due to the scarcity of mentors and sponsors. And balancing domestic responsibilities and caregiving leave further compounds these challenges. Women are more likely to report work-life balance issues and lower career satisfaction compared to men. In radiology, women radiologists often experience lower job satisfaction than men do to overwork. These obstacles can significantly hinder women's pursuit of demanding academic careers, especially in academic medicine. Mid-career challenges are especially difficult for women from multiple marginalized groups, including racial or religious minorities, those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, LGBTQ2 plus individuals, and those with disabilities. Losing these mid-career radiologists from underrepresented groups has significant consequences. It limits the availability of diverse perspectives and expertise, hindering innovation and creative problem solving. It reinforces gender-based disparities in leadership roles and compensation. The lack of role models from underrepresented groups perpetuates the cycle of underrepresentation. These outcomes negatively impact the overall welfare of radiologists, increasing the susceptibility to burnout in underrepresented groups, and these consequences can have repercussions on patient care and research. To enhance diversity and inclusion in radiology and ultimately to improve patient care, a comprehensive approach is vital involving individuals, institutions, and society. Raising awareness of unconscious biases and enhancing diversity and inclusion practices are crucial to promote equity and inclusivity within the radiology community. Proactive support of women and minorities in mid-career will be required. This includes mentorship and sponsorship programs to provide support and guidance to underrepresented individuals. Prioritizing work-life balance and flexibility, for example, allowing part-time work and remote reporting is also crucial to create an inclusive environment that supports a diverse faculty's well-being. These solutions demand ongoing commitment and collaboration from all stakeholders to establish and maintain a more favorable work environment. The mid-career challenges in radiology must be addressed to enhance diversity and equity and to improve patient care. Opportunities for improvement include fostering a workplace culture that embraces diversity, prioritizing professional growth, and ensuring a healthy work-life balance. Intentional support for women and minority radiologists throughout their careers will be required to retain talented individuals, leverage their expertise, attract investment, and ultimately drive advancements in patient care and overall health outcomes. Thank you. Next up, we have Dr. Justin Holder, who is assistant professor from Montefiore Einstein, and he is going to speak about the importance of supporting invisible minorities. All right. Thank you. So the goals of this talk, first I'll define invisible minorities. I'll talk about why it's important to be an inclusive community, and then I'll go through some of the strategies and solutions that places have come up with to help with this issue. So first, who are invisible minorities? So taking a step back in like a broader sense, a minority is, you know, can be defined as anyone with a unique social, religious, ethnic, racial, or other characteristic that differs from that of a majority. And usually they're characterized by oppression or discrimination by those in a more powerful social position. So we can see that diversity encompasses many factors. It could be based on race, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, citizenship, or religion. So first this term visible minority was coined by a Canadian activist named Kay Livingstone in 1975. This initially was set to just describe non-Caucasian, non-indigenous peoples of Canada. And then over time it's sort of been applied to refer to anyone who does not match the white male appearance or phenotype. So this is all based on someone's appearance. So the downsides of this visibility is that it doesn't account for discrimination that is not based on someone's appearance. So a lot of people in the LGBTQIA spectrum with gender identity or sexual preference differences fall under this, as well as religious and socioeconomic statuses. And then in terms of race and ethnicity, over time attention has been paid to the most prevalent ethnic minority groups. So in the U.S. this will be the black and Latinx communities. And the problem with that is that other racial groups have felt neglected, basically. This includes the Asian Pacific American population, Arab Americans, mixed race individuals, as well as Native Americans. So this term, invisible minorities, kind of encompasses all of these different patient populations. So just an example in the healthcare community, in 2021, University of Minnesota conducted a survey of medical students. They looked at 58,000 students, and then out of those, only 6% identified as a sexual minority. So that's gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Among those 58,000, 2,600 listed radiology as their intended specialty, and amongst those only 5% identified as a sexual minority, and also 28% of those were women. So what is the challenge or the problem of this invisibility? So what happens is a lot of these people are perceived to have similar opportunities as others, but they really don't. So there's like an illusion of economic, academic, and political success, and there are challenges in discrimination. They're often unnoticed, and eventually they are underrepresented in leadership positions. Just the other day I met someone who is from Portugal. She was a trainee, and she was like, I appear white and Caucasian, so no one ever asked, but it's been very difficult for her to break into the U.S. healthcare workforce. So within our community, we definitely see these disadvantages. The other issue with some of these minority groups is that they have certain positive stereotypes attributed to them. For instance, Asians are typically characterized as being, quote, good at math and hardworking. The issues with that is that it discounts the diversity or the mixture of the individuals within that population, and these often get misconstrued or twisted into negative stereotypes. For instance, someone who is maybe good at math or science is not creative, not innovative, and then someone who is hardworking might just be very passive, compliant, and agreeable. So what does this result in the healthcare workforce? So we see lower promotion rates within these groups, fewer research grants, lower career satisfaction on surveys. We see incidents of discrimination and racism reported. There's also a pressure to fit into the institution at large's socioeconomic environment. So why is inclusion important? So for the workplace as a whole, it's good for just general professional development. It improves morale and pride in the institution amongst the workers. Employees get more engaged. It improves retention and recruitment. It also enhances innovation and productivity. So the workplace just becomes generally more efficient. And then, you know, let's not forget why we're all really here is for patient care, and people have found that a diverse workforce does help with healthcare quality. So if you have a diverse workforce, you're able to match the patient's culture, their background, you can better identify with them, communicate with them, patients become more engaged and motivated in their own care. So you improve this healthcare quality. When the healthcare quality of an institution improves, the employees are generally more proud in their work, excited to be there. This in turn increases retention and recruitment, and the cycle continues of promoting diversity and inclusion in the workforce. So that was kind of the situation of what we have, what we're dealing with. And some institutions have come up with strategies and solutions to address this. So I'll go through some of those now. So it can start, like, very early, like in training. So a lot of people have found that in a lot of medical schools, the radiology, like, curriculum or courses are not taught by clinical radiologists. They're taught by, you know, scientists in the medical school. And you know, that is fine, except the issue is that the students don't see minority attendings as role models, as leaders, as people to look up to and aspire to. A lot of medical schools and residency programs have these curriculum working groups where faculty participates, like, with the students. For instance, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which is the one affiliated with us, we have an LGBT healthcare working group, which I'm involved in with several other faculty and students. And the students will let us know what they want to learn about. Faculty will identify, like, gaps in the knowledge. And it's just a very nice, like, collaborative effort. And then a lot of residency programs have support groups for, like, non-didactic kind of issues. So they'll discuss things like mentorship, wellness, community outreach, and research. So all of this just helps support and retain trainees. So here's an example of just some residency and student groups that we have. And these are all nice because individuals are able to share common characteristics, interests, and life experiences. As Charlotte mentioned, mentorship is important. This should be for trainees and attendings. This helps raise awareness of DEI topics. This encourages voluntary participation in committees, organizations, and interest groups. That's important because, obviously, whenever someone is involuntarily or asked to join a committee, they're not going to be as motivated for it to succeed. This all helps cultivate diversity champions, which then can translate into leadership positions. And then organized medicine has a big role in this. So it's important for societies to embrace diversity because it sets the standard or example that diversity and inclusion is pursued as a global field. And then this kind of trickles down to individual departments, institutions becoming more welcome environments. An example is our own, the Arsenae Committee on DEI. I'm also in New York State, so we have a New York State Radiologic Society, which is very active in this realm. Then a lot of people propose that admissions and recruitment committees should take more active steps. A lot of people propose this holistic recruitment of trainees, meaning you look at the academic metrics, as well as look at the community experiences, leadership qualities of the applicants, and that diversity should also be reflected in the interview or selection committees. Individual institutions are important to have these DEI committees. It shows that they have a strategic plan and are ensuring that represented groups have a voice in the organization. Trainees are able to contribute to these strategic initiatives. This all helps combat institutional bias, which is the unintentional impression that the institution doesn't value differences in ideas, perspectives, backgrounds. And all this helps workplace culture, engagement, again, retention, and recruitment. Community outreach is important. This can take the form of grand rounds, social events. Facilities would be open to the workplace, medical school, and a community as a whole. This again further instills pride in the institution, helps retain trainees, employees, and helps people be inspired and encouraged to pursue leadership positions. And then finally, research is important, because there really is a scarcity of studies that investigate the perspectives of minorities in the medical world. So we could help identify what attracts or deters people from pursuing radiology, and this can help develop models for diversity programs. And so that was it. So I discussed what invisible minorities are, why it's important to have inclusion in medicine, and went through the strategies that exist to promote this diversity. These are my references, and thank you. I'd like to introduce you to our next speaker, Dr. Christine Glastonbury, who's the Vice Chair of Academic Affairs from UCSF. And the title of her lecture is How to Effectively Mentor and Sponsor Mid-Career Faculty. And I have to say, I can think of nobody better to give this lecture, because she has personally done this for many, many faculty. So Dr. Glastonbury. Thank you very much, Dr. Yi. So I'm going to shift a little from what we've been talking about, and I'm going to talk about how we can work to effectively mentor and sponsor mid-career faculty. So I'm going to start with talking about who we should be thinking of, what is happening in radiologists' careers that is resulting in this problem, and is resulting in, as Charlotte was talking about, the leaky pipeline. And then very specifically, how we can help as mentors. So many of you here, I see faces of people who I know are already great mentors. And some of you look a little younger, that this may be more speaking to what you should be thinking about in your own mid-career level. So when you start out as early career faculty, it looks like this really big, steep hill to climb. All right, we can do this. But this is the reality once you become a little bit further down the line. And it's like, oh my God, I've made it to associate professor and then there's this other hill. And we don't want you to drop off once you make it to associate professor. So I wanna talk a little about the career and about, first of all, which group of people we're talking about and what's going on. So a little view from where I am really very fortunate to live. So, you know, there are a couple of landmarks in your career, in an academic career. You start off as an assistant professor. Once you're appointed, you make it to associate and then at some point you make it to full professor and then you kind of trail off into the distance into retirement at some point after that. But the career doesn't really look like the peaks like this. And I wanna kind of clarify what I mean by mid-career. So when I talk about mid-career, I'm really talking about kind of the full bulk of your career, the first assistant years, around four to six years in many institutions, unless, of course, if you're at Harvard, which is like eternity until you get to associate professor for most people. But really the bulk of people's career here is that mid-career level and it really looks more like this for most of us. It's never a straight line nor a neat little curve. It's usually something more like that. But what I'm talking about here is really associate and full professors and it really is quite a long time of your career that you can have to mold this. And you will find if you spend a lot of time talking to mid-career people that there are a lot of peaks and troughs and there are a lot of places that things can go wrong and a lot of places where they need help, which is kind of interesting because pretty much all the conversation is about early career mentoring. It's always about that beginning bit, it is a steep climb at the beginning and don't get me wrong, but there is a lot of energy and time and money put into the early career mentoring for very, very good reasons because you need to get people started. You need to get them finding their focus in their career and whether that be a research-directed focus, bless you, whether that be an education focus, but they need to develop some sort of expertise. So that's why mentoring has been so strongly focused on this group because it is really, really important. But what we're going to talk about is the next bit. So why is mid-career problematic? So for many people, once you become associate professor, you really kind of know what you're doing. OK, I got this now. I know how to handle the reading room. I know how to teach medical students. I know how to teach residents. I know you can throw all sorts of brain scans at me and I know how to deal with them. And for many people, there's a kind of like, now what? Like there's this bit in their career like, OK, I know what I'm doing, but I kind of... I need something more. You get a little adrift. You get a little too comfortable. And I know that there are people who are really happy being comfortable and that's it. But let's face it, many people in academic, we're a little type A and we kind of need something more. And you can get adrift and you can get bored and you also get really busy. And for a lot of people, especially around the assistant, there's a lot of family needs, wants. And you've done that first peak, you've got to the associate professor and it's a time of, why am I doing this? I'm just busy all the time and I'm not growing. And that's why mid-career is an important time, if you're in mid-career, to pause and think about everything. And pause and go, what is it that I really want now? And this is a great time to pause and go, do I have the mentors around me who can help me for my next phase? Do I have the people who are going to be able to sponsor me for the next phase? Because mentoring is actually really critical here. And it has largely been forgotten because everybody's so focused on getting everybody in. But as Charlotte talked about, this is where we start to lose people, where people feel lost, they feel forgotten, they don't feel fulfilled in their career. This is when people need redirection. They need new ideas and they need new purpose. And so mentoring needs to shift now for mid-career people. So if you are running mentoring programs or if you are a mentor, or if you have colleagues who are junior to you and you see them kind of like just kind of doing the business, going around, this is a really good time to stop and help them. And when I'm talking about new ideas, it means that, yes, they've achieved some sort of expertise, but now they can actually shift a little. You can handle being an expert in more than one area now. And there are a lot of different things that you can reach out for in all the typical areas that we talk about in academic medicine. So there may be new skills that they can acquire. This is a great time, one of our faculty did an MFA in writing and it's about medical writing, but it's a way to bring in other areas of interest. There may be a new area in research that they could take up. Maybe they've been predominantly in education and they really want to get more hardcore into research. It's not too late to do that as an associate professor. Maybe now is a great time to send them to a leadership program. And I remember as an associate professor when the then Vice Chair for Academic Affairs said to me, we're going to send you to this leadership program that UCSF runs. And I looked at her like, but I'm not a leader. I'm like, what are you talking about? Because a lot of these junior people have not necessarily thought about this. So your job as a mentor is to start educating them about this. Start talking and listening to their ideas and finding new opportunities for them to move and change. This is when you start talking about moving people up as associate professors into leadership positions. Starting with smaller things, making them bigger, running QA for a division, then moving up to something else, program director in your division. Giving them things that are stretching them and moving them, giving them new skills. And they need new purpose. You need to find the secret to this person. Now, as a junior faculty, I encourage people to take on a lot of different things and try it out. As a mid-career, what is it that really makes that faculty tick? What is it that's going to keep them wanting to come to work every day for the next 20 to 30 years? You don't want to lose them now. You've spent all that money and time getting them to associate professor. How are you going to keep growing that faculty? So they want to stay where you are. They want to contribute to what your department is doing. And they want to become kind of fully fulfilled people. So sometimes their unrealized ambitions are not actually in education research. This is a time when people start doing a few other things. Running marathons, all sorts of other things. Working out what it is that is going to keep them going. Because not everything is work-based. And in those early years, it's pretty hard to do all those other things that are interesting to you. So it's a time in your discussions with them to let them explore who they are now. And an associate professor is when you should be able to take a breath and think about who do I want to be rather than what has the system wanted me to be until now. So mid-career mentoring is a shift to finding their purpose. Rather than finding a niche for them and getting their career going, it's finding their purpose. And then they're going to want to stay with you. So this is really about how do you retain and how do you stop that leaky pipeline. So my really key points here I wanted to share about mid-career mentoring. The most important thing to do if you're running a mentoring program, if you have more junior faculty, is number one, you've got to start having the conversations. You've got to talk with them about what it is that drives them. And open the door for them to see that there are other new opportunities. I never saw myself as leadership. I ended up starting the mentorship program at UCSF. There's a lot of things that people don't even know that they can do yet. But you need to have a conversation and draw these people in. And then you need to listen to them. When they tell you that they want to do an MFA and you're like, OK, how is that going to help? You'd be surprised how people finding their purpose can bring back their energy to work. You need to make good suggestions to things. Throw some things out. Find what it is that's going to stick. And then offer support for the opportunities they choose. As senior faculty, it is your job to sponsor these people. Find opportunities for them. Encourage them to do new things in their life. And remember, some of them are not work-related. So that's really kind of my summary. It's listen, listen, but offer things. And once you've put those out there, be there to support them as they move through their next career. And try and avoid that leaky pipeline. Thank you. Next, we have an amazing interventional radiologist, but Dr. Gloria Salazar, who is Vice Chair of Diversity and Health Equity at the University of North Carolina. And the title of her lecture is Assuring that Women Radiologists Thrive in Your Program. Thank you so much. It is truly an honor to be here. We have changed the landscape in soccer. And Martha, who is the major, the greatest female football player of all time, she was awarded several times. This was her last World Cup this year, and the Women's World Cup. And she gave such a beautiful emotional speech at her retirement age, essentially just inspiring all of us. So she is my role model, too, together with Pelé. And what she does for the society is much more than just playing soccer. She actually changed a whole industry in my country and overall everywhere in sports, where now we see female journalists actually reporting, actually giving opinions about who is going to win the match. And this is unheard of. When I was growing up in Brazil, it would be unheard of to have a journalist woman giving opinion in soccer or football. Forget about it. You have no clue what you're talking about. But thank God for Martha, because she opened doors. She opened doors for underrepresented minorities. She opened doors. She's an ambassador for UNICEF, and she empowers girls, women, and the invisible minorities. Now, I'm no soccer player. And for the longest time, back in the 2000s when I was growing up as a radiologist, there were a lot of male role models, not a lot of chairs, women role models. And I would tell you that I was about to be in the leaky pipe when Maureen Cohey came along. And I am so, so grateful for that, because she sponsored me into what I am right now. This is long years in the making. And in the words of Maureen Cohey, you cannot be what you cannot see. So similar to Martha, the football player, similar to all of us. And I know that is a 20% gap or 80% gap for chairs. But we're going to get there, and we need to get there. We have the pathway programs, and we just need to work on it. So how do we do that? And I think it's important to understand, and I love that we talk a lot about mentorship for mid-career. And I think that's really lacking. But we also need to understand the difference amongst those two, mentoring and sponsoring. Christine already alluded to this. But I just want to make sure we clarify it, because I think it's confusing for leaders. What do I need to do now? I need to sponsor, or do I need to mentor, or what do you need both? So this is one of my first mentors, starting at Mass General, Dr. Art Waldman, gold medalist. Amazing leader. And he was my mentor. And who is a mentor? A mentor is somebody who's going to be more experienced than you, who's going to share knowledge with you. That mentor is going to have political capital, because they understand. They've been there for years in the institution that you're practicing. So they understand where the opportunities are, how do we have this conversation that we presented just in the previous talk, like, where is your purpose? And he helped me a lot with that. He may be coaching you about your professional behaviors, like how to present yourself, et cetera. And I've been told I need to talk more, speak up more, because I was not speaking up. And I did. And they provide feedback. So the mentor is the most beautiful thing. They become friends, perhaps, and then you grow with it. The problem, though, is that not only in academia, but even in corporations, a lot of mentorship programs for diversity, for improved diverse workforce, but they fail. And why is that? And we need to learn about that. Now, this was already shown. This is the graph that was shown about our current status. And you can see the female, 20% of female chairs. And we do start with an equity in numbers, but we don't progress to the higher ranks of role models or of leadership. It doesn't need to be a chair. But if you want to be a chair, we want to make sure that you get there. And these are the comments by other colleagues of our chairs and why is that we need to work hard on that. This is why it's so important to have this session here. So what we would like to do is to get to a level, oh, this slide is not playing. But anyhow, at the University of North Carolina, we are very happy to report that in the last two years, our group has been able to recruit a diverse workforce. And not only that, we have half of the vice chairs, because this is the same graph that we utilized for the publication that was shown already. But we do have the same representation of women in leadership positions. So vice chairs, and in the hospital, we also have that. So that is what we need. We not only need to mentor, but we also need to sponsor. And then when you look at the value of mentorship, and this is work that we've done with the trainees in the pathways, sort of like programs that we have, even the mentorship, the quality of mentorship, depending on their gender, is different. In this paper, we've proved or we've shown that the male respondents were actually more exposed to opportunities for education when they were mentored, as opposed to women. So the value of mentorship, it's important. So what is the problem? Well, like Harvard Business Review always answers all the questions for us, right? So this is the answer to the question. And I would strongly encourage you to read those papers. Erminia and Barra has done an amazing job in breaking down this. We could learn from them. We could learn, because they literally failed. All the programs that they have, most programs of mentorship failed. And why is that? Because really, like, don't just mentor women and people of color or the invisible minorities. Sponsor them. How do we do that? OK. Why is that we have the situation of lack of sponsorship? Because the people who are at the top, they tend to navigate and gravitate towards the same people. If I play golf with my same group, and somebody in my golf group is going to be doing a new project, and I have an opportunity for sponsorship or a leadership position, I'm going to think of the person who's playing golf with me. And guess who's playing golf with me? Another woman. Not true in the real scenario, but I never made it to play golf with my colleagues, by the way. But I do play golf. Anyhow, but what I'm trying to say is that in the industry, in a corporation, people tend to gravitate to those who are like them. For me, it's going to be a Brazilian, Latinx woman. But for the people who are in power, they are going to navigate. And it's not their fault. However, that tends to increase the likelihood of selecting the same people for the same position. So this is why I feel very strong about having more diversity in the leadership position so that you actually can sponsor people. And we know in that area that women tend to be over-mentored and under-sponsored. So let's move on. So here's Zev Haskell in 2016. He said, Gloria, you're going to present at StreamIR. And StreamIR is a dangerous podium presentation. I did it, and he helped me. And that was a shift in my career, too. And I just want to tell you, this is the most beautiful part of sponsorship is being asked to give a talk. That is a sponsorship on the go. That's a quick thing that you can do for yourself. But what is a sponsorship? It's a helping relationship in which powerful people use their personal cloud to talk to you up, to advocate for you, and place a more junior person in a key role. That's what we need to do. While a mentor is someone who's going to be sharing stuff, or is going to be teaching you, perhaps, a sponsor is going to be somebody who has the power to use it for you. And here is this spectrum. It's a beautiful thing. It can go very private relationship from mentoring to strategize. I do a lot of strategizing with everybody. Yesterday, I sat with five different people outside of my institution, even. And I said, well, maybe you should do this. Maybe you should do that. There's going to be an opportunity for a position at SIR. Why don't you apply for that? I know this stuff, because I have been part of many committees. And I know that. So I strategize. But then you make the connection. OK, so Dr. So-and-so, here's the chief, or the chair, or the committee sponsor. Please connect. And they connect. And I just walk away. And that's it. That's done. An opportunity giver, it's somebody who's going to literally tell you, like, hey, I want you to lead this program. And they publicly advocate a promotion for you, fight for you in the settings that you cannot be there, because you're not in all the meetings that the decisions are being made. So you need an advocate for yourself. And this is what sponsorship is. So it's a high-stakes situation, because there's only one spot. So you need to get it right. You need to choose the right person. And that's the challenge for us. Who is the right person for that? So it's binary. Either you sponsor somebody, or you don't. And if you do, there are consequences, right? You put women forward, and then, oh, they failed. See, they failed. Like, how many times I didn't hear that. They failed. So why we put it? Why we have to promote this? But what should you do as a sponsor? Like, you show up. You're patient. No judgment zone area. Like, you need to listen, as was said before. We act outside of the one-on-one meetings with our sponsors. And we seek out relevant information transparently. We also do feedback and psychological safety. And we talk to each other. The leaders talk to each other about who they're going to sponsor next. So you need to be in that list of people that they think about in their minds. And successful sponsors, and this is from Patricia Baltazar, another amazing radiologist in Emory. She wrote the speech of, like, I strongly encourage you to also read it, trust, respect, and waiting on risks. But when the sponsors make an opportunity possible for a sponsor, they assume a certain risk. So you need to really rise to the top. No pressure. You really need to make them look good. And effective sponsor, rise on the task and remain loyal. And I think this is very important, the loyalty, because it gives you the continuation of the sponsoring. So we're going to use our power for mission-critical assignments. So you're going to get asked to do something very important. And the best sponsor is someone who's present when the key staffing decisions are made in the meetings, and they're making decisions about who they're going to put next. They're influential leaders. So how do you look for one? So you just need to understand who is the most powerful person that you probably know. And you probably know somebody. And then you need to know how to get to that person. Now, how do you do that? You just work on projects. Just offer yourself to write a paper. I want a project that sounds, can I write it with you? Yesterday, three people came, like, let's write this paper. OK, let's do it. That's how it starts. But also, I think coming to conferences, like having a national presence in the conferences, showing yourself, giving a talk. People are going to call you for maybe take on a committee leadership, et cetera. There's so many opportunities that you can actually make a reputation be seen, your talent be seen. And what are your rules as a sponsor? It's to be proactive and well-prepared. You need to know what your purpose is. You need to know what to tell, because people are going to be like, OK, so then I can put you in this position. You have to give clear and concrete direction, either to your mentor or to your sponsor. You have to value that the sponsor is the best equipped to contribute. You need to understand what they can contribute. And seek and add value to the sponsor. This is a relationship. This is a partnership. So once you are in the club, I don't want to call it a club, but you are going to be making people look good. And finally, I just want to leave the message that underrepresented minorities, invisible minorities, women, tend to be over-mentoring on their sponsor. We talk, talk, talk, but we don't put them in the power. We don't give them the tools to do so. We need to start doing that. And I didn't talk about that, but you do need to get rid of imposter syndrome in order to do that. So in the words of Martha, believe in yourself and trust yourself. If you don't, nobody else will. Thank you very much for your time.

career advancement

underrepresented groups

radiology

leaky pathway

mentorship

diversity

inclusive environments

sponsorship