Growing up in western Pennsylvania in the late 70s, the media coverage of University of Pittsburgh’s pioneering advancements in liver and kidney transplants helped me quickly (and by “quickly,” I mean about five years old) decide that I was going to be a transplant surgeon. That was generally met with blank stares and comments that I should investigate a nursing or teaching career. It was remotely plausible that a daughter of a doctor might pursue a medical career (pediatrics –not surgery), but the daughter of a steel worker should be happy with a high school diploma and trade. I never made any attempt to really comprehend such opposition, and with the fictional television shows like Marcus Welby MD, St. Elsewhere, and my grandmother’s old nursing book urging me on, I continued to advance my interest in medicine. I am rather renowned for being bullheaded and I thought to myself, “this is the 80’s… I can do anything I want.” My parents saved everything and lived very frugally, and because of those habits they were able to pay for almost my whole education. They saw education as the only way to be free, and as such they invested greatly in me; I couldn’t have been more fortunate. After earning my undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh, I went to Temple University for medical school. It was a rough area of town, but it was a great area for training because I saw a lot of trauma patients and gained a lot of experience. That exposure only solidified the realization that I loved surgery. Temple did not have a transplant program at the time, so the closest replacement was a rotation in vascular surgery. Most career choices are made by meeting an inspirational mentor, and mine was John V. White MD, who demonstrated to me how satisfying vascular surgery could be. The fine detail of the cases along with the well-defined categories of “this patient needs immediate surgery,” and “this patient is okay for now” appealed to my binary mode of thinking.
I was fortunate to match at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (UTMB). It was a small campus, which fit my personality as a “small town” person, and I ended up spending six years there training to be a surgeon including a post-doctoral research year in burns. I then pursued my passion for peripheral vascular surgery returning home to Temple University. At that point however Texas was in my blood and I returned to Galveston as junior faculty for seven years until hurricane Rita. It was clear to me then that living on a sandbar with rising sea levels might not be the best and I migrated to beautiful San Antonio, where I live and work today.
I have been fortunate in so many ways. I have a wonderful husband and two amazing teenage sons, and still have my nonagenarian parents with me here in Texas. I love to do surgery and those are my favorite days of the week. Surgeries usually start at 7:30 am, but you must arrive earlier to complete paperwork and see people in the hospital. Elective schedules usually finish by 5:00, then you have time to do evening rounds, so home 6:30 or so. Clinic days can be more reliable, but there is also more “homework” documentation that I do later at home remotely once I see my family. An academic appointment at a major university is a privilege and allows me to meet and work with so many young eager talented people. I started the vascular surgery fellowship at UT Health in 2015 so that I could teach my trade to a new generation of surgeons who felt the same way about vascular surgery as I do. Since 2010 I have been the chief of vascular surgery at the Audie Murphy VA hospital and have been able to grow the program to four surgeons, a hybrid endovascular suite, vascular laboratory and outreach clinics to name a few accomplishments
I have enjoyed twenty-five years in this profession and have seen many changes. Many of the stereotypes that I saw on TV of the surgeon as a dictator I have learned are far from reality. A surgeon is a team leader, not as the stereotypical “domineering” surgeon but as a supportive team player. A great role model and mentor for me now is our department chairman Ronald Stewart MD. He is the epitome of servant leadership and sets an amazing example of a leader that I want to become. That said, I think the medical profession would be greatly improved if we could find a way to dampen the distractions of the business of medicine, such as what individual insurance company covers, and just focus on what is best for each patient. One of my favorite aspects of working at the VA is that patient care is made based on data, not profit margins.
As a role model in my academic and administrative titles, I have tried to make things better for the next generation. I think I have made some progress, but there is still more to be done. Likewise, there are still obstacles for women trying to practice medicine, even if they don’t look the same as those of the twentieth century. Still, humans are incredibly adaptable, and as we continue to adapt medical and surgical techniques, we will continue to adapt in other ways to overcome the obstacles in front of us. I hope to continue being an inspiration to those behind me and learning new things from them as well.