When Kathy E. Magliato, MD,
MBA, became a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon, she was practically one
of a kind, joining approximately 200 other women in the world to breathe this
rarefied air. Later, as Director of the Mechanical Assist Device Program at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, she found even that wasn’t enough.
“While building this clinical program and working with various artificial heart manufacturing companies, it became apparent to me that something was missing in my life as a heart surgeon and program director… the language of business,” writes Magliato (EMBA ’06.) “While I was fluent in the language of medicine… I was completely ignorant of the language of business,” she continues. “While one language was used to save lives, the other was used to change lives, and I found them both extraordinary and necessary to my evolution as a physician and surgeon.”
Lessons Learned: Stories from Women in Medical Management, edited by Deborah Shlian (EMBA ’88,) exposes the experiences and challenges of women like Magliato and herself, medical doctors navigating an industry where women in executive positions are highly underrepresented.
Twenty-four women with leadership positions in a variety of fields, including academic medicine, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and government, detail their unique experiences with healthcare’s thick glass ceiling, which can thwart women’s ability to grow into more senior roles. “Through a range of stories, this book shows the value of mentorship, the importance of knowing and staying true to yourself and possessing the will to take risks,” Shlian says. Among other key topics, the women share obstacles and perspectives in balancing work, family and personal life.
When Shlian edited her 1995 monograph, Women in Medicine and Management: A Mentoring Guide, 19 percent of American physicians were women, up from approximately eight percent in 1970. By 2009, that number had increased to 30 percent, according to Shlian. And, while data on women in medicine has improved, they still represent a disproportionately small percentage in leadership roles. As the book notes, almost 50 percent of all medical students in 2012 were female, yet only 16 percent hold leadership roles.
In her introduction, Shlian quotes Barnard College president Debora Spar speaking at a White House conference on urban economic development. “We have fallen into what I call the 16 percent ghetto, which is that if you look at any sector, be it aerospace engineering, Hollywood films, higher education, or Fortune 500 leading positions, women max out at roughly 16 percent. That is a crime, and it is a waste of incredible talent.”
Shlian received her M.D. from the University of Maryland and spent years as a family medicine practitioner before coming to UCLA Anderson for her MBA. After business school, Shlian started a medical executive recruiting firm, which her husband Joel (EMBA ’88) joined in 1994. Dr. Shlian attests to the value of her time at Anderson and the horizon-expanding teamwork with fellow students with dissimilar careers. “The networking and opportunity to work in a collaborative environment, along with the operational and math skills that I developed while at Anderson, helped reshape my way of thinking about my profession,” she said. “It was the most interesting education because in b-school we worked in groups while in medicine you work by yourself. In a group of six, we had finance and engineering practitioners while my husband and I were both doctors. The new understanding I gained based off their expertise was tough, but it was good.”
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