At Spectrum Health Care Partners, we celebrate the many gains made by women in medicine and strive to foster an atmosphere where all physicians feel supported in their work. Consider this recent shift in demographics:
- As of the 2023-2024 school year, the Association of American Medical Colleges noted that more than 55-percent of medical students in this country’s M.D.-granting programs were women. That is a striking contrast to the distribution in years as recent as 2017, when male doctors still outnumbered female doctors in the U.S. workforce according to the American Medical Association (AMA).
It could be easy to read those statistics and think that observing Women in Medicine Month is no longer necessary every September.
However, there’s still important work to be done regarding gender parity in medicine. For instance, disparities in compensation and underrepresentation in leadership are still being addressed throughout the medical community.
Additionally, not all specialties come anywhere close to an even balance of male and female clinicians, though not all areas show the same kind of distribution. For example, just over 87% of doctors in obstetrics and gynecology are women, while more than 73% of pediatric physicians are women. Meanwhile, men continue to dominate such specialties as orthopedic surgery, interventional radiology, and neurological surgery by anywhere from 76% to nearly 80%.
Radiation oncology is another such male-dominated specialty, making Spectrum rather unique: we boast two female radiation oncologists in a field where only 28.9 percent of those practicing are women. Similarly, women comprise only 30.8 percent of radiation oncology residents in the United States, and some programs do not currently have any female residents.
“One of the reasons why there are not a lot of women in this field is because, naturally, people gravitate towards places they can see themselves fitting in,” explains Whitney Beeler, MD, radiation oncologist at Spectrum Healthcare Partners. “Fit often is asking: ‘Do I look like the people around me?’”
Dr. Beeler says this lack of representation is often the barrier to “breaking through that 30 percent.”
Shadows That Sparked Careers
Although Dr. Beeler, and her colleague, Sujana Gottumukkala, MD, are among the minority, they gravitated toward the specialty from their first exposure to it.
“I was always interested in oncology, but when I started medical school, I didn’t even know radiation oncology existed,” says Dr. Gottumukkala. “During a break in my first year of medical school, I happened to shadow a female physician doing head and neck radiation oncology and immediately fell in love. I valued how much time she was able to spend with patients. I really loved that she had the time to get to know them and help them understand their diagnosis and treatment options.”
Dr. Beeler had a similar experience. “I was just doing a two-week shadow rotation because I wanted to go into oncology, but I didn’t know much about radiation oncology,” she says. After shadowing a female radiation oncologist, she was hooked.
“I loved how she was with patients and how she talked to the team. She was telling me all about her son and then running here, running there, and going off to tumor boards… I thought, I could be like that,” says Dr. Beeler.
A Shared Passion for Radiation Oncology
While this field often involves figuring out a complex puzzle for treatment, the focus is always on the patient. Both Dr. Beeler and Dr. Gottumukkala recognize that the treatment process can be a stressful experience for the patients and their families, and both physicians feel a deep sense of purpose in guiding people through challenging times.
“We have hour-long consults, which is unheard of in medicine,” says Dr. Beeler. “I can sit down for an hour with my patients, connect, and have real conversations, which I find very rewarding.”
“I’m a big fan of patient autonomy, and think it’s important for patients to be equal partners in their healthcare,” says Dr. Gottumukkala. “The only way to achieve that is through patient education, but you need time. I love that our specialty tends toward longer consults. I can really get to know my patients, which allows me to tailor their treatment to their individual needs.”
The focus on collaboration is also a big part of why these doctors chose radiation oncology.
“I liked radiation oncology the most for the team aspect,” explains Dr. Beeler. “It wasn’t hierarchical or siloed.” She added that she also appreciates the collaboration with colleagues. “We have the opportunity to work with different people with varying backgrounds and specialties. It helps us all to think about things differently.”
“Everyone is looking out for the patients, and that’s why we are all here,” adds Dr. Gottumukkala. “But we also do a good job looking out for each other, which makes for an incredibly rewarding work environment. People always say medicine is a team sport. I think radiation oncology really exemplifies that.”
Strengthening the Patient Experience Through Greater Representation
“There are a lot of women in Maine, and everywhere, who have hidden trauma histories,” says Dr. Beeler. “We get probably a referral every other month requesting female providers only.”
Spectrum is committed not only to serving our patients, but also supporting our physicians. Like Dr. Beeler and Dr. Gottumukkala, we hope it inspires more women to seek out this field.
“This is a great field for women,” says Dr. Beeler. “I’m always trying to convince medical students to come into radiation oncology.”
“This all started from having that first role model,” adds Dr. Gottumukkala. “It made it feel like it was accessible and possible.”
