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.”
