Yakima Valley women contribute to boom in health care industry – Yakima Herald-Republic

This school year, women made up very nearly half of the roughly 28,000 students accepted to medical schools in the U.S., and about 46 percent of medical school graduates in 2016.

In Yakima, 48 percent of Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences current medical students are women. The past two graduating classes seesawed from 38 percent women in 2015 to 60 percent women in 2016.

Its a long way from the early 1980s, when barely a quarter of all medical school graduates were women. Meanwhile, nursing is roughly 90 percent women, and women physician assistants outnumber men nearly 2 to 1.

But health care leadership remains overwhelmingly male: A 2016 report by consulting firm Strategy& found that only 1.6 percent of CEOs in the health care industry were women. In Yakima, women hold a third or fewer of top executive positions at most major health organizations; only Yakima Neighborhood Health Services has a female CEO.

As poor patient outcomes, soaring costs and legislative uncertainty continue to plague U.S. health care, leaders say innovation is key to righting the system and innovation means new ideas from new people.

If we look around the table and we dont have all the voices represented, then Im not sure were going to figure out the best solutions, said Diane Patterson, chief clinical officer at Virginia Mason Memorial Hospital and longtime nurse.

That means more women, as well as more leaders from different cultures, socio-economic backgrounds and temperaments, she said.

One of four women in Memorials 12-person C-suite or top-level adminstrative team, Patterson has thought extensively about how to bring up more women to fill leadership roles.

How do we make sure that were supporting women in leadership, and what does that look like? she asks. And how do we create the dialogue to talk about that in a safe way, thats not threatening?

Gains in medical school parity still have not resulted in equal pay or parity in specialties, said American Medical Womens Association president Dr. Suzanne Harrison, who also is a professor and Family Medicine Education director at Florida State University College of Medicine.

Only a third of active state-licensed doctors are women, national data show, and the gender pay gap is huge: A recent JAMA article found that female orthopedic surgeons and cardiologists earn $41,000 and $34,000 less, respectively, than their male counterparts.

Cardiology, urology and orthopedic surgery see especially low rates of female practitioners. Health care data analyst firm Amino reported last year that women only outnumber men in pediatrics and gynecology.

Academic positions are still male-dominated, with women making up only about 16 percent of medical school deans and 22 percent of tenured professors, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. And federal research grants go more often to male doctors than women.

Everything is just that much more difficult for women to achieve, Harrison said.

Even fewer leadership positions are held by women of color.

As an industry we struggle because we dont have (leadership) populations that reflect our community, said up-and-coming leader Bertha Lopez, senior director for community health and planning at Memorial. I think from a person of color, its hard for you to picture yourself in those roles because you dont have a lot of people that look like you, so youre paving the way.

While leadership methods differ from person to person and cant be ascribed solely to one gender or another, Women bring a different style of leadership to the table, Harrison said.

Where men tend more toward authoritative, top-down leadership, broadly speaking, (Women) bring that collaborative nature to the table and in their project planning, their care of patients, she said. We tend to listen to what peoples struggles are and hear them before we make a decision, rather than just deciding.

But it can take a critical mass of about 30 percent women at the table in order for women to feel comfortable displaying a different kind of leadership, and getting women into those roles can be a catch-22, says Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic chief human resource officer Lisa Picatti.

Many studies have shown that women dont tend to seek higher-level positions until they see women in higher-level positions in their organization, she said.

Lopez said shed like to see more outreach into the community so current female leaders can be visible examples to young women, particularly in communities of color.

We have groups of people that really cant picture themselves in higher skilled jobs or going to college, because their parents may have never been talking about it at home, or they couldnt help dream that, she said. She grew up a child of immigrant farmworkers, moving to Zillah at 15, and attributes much of her success to a high school counselor, Ms. Maldonado, who helped her apply to college.

I do think there needs to be intentional or purposeful mentorship programs that are developed in communities, as well as more diverse representation on hospital boards and in executive positions, she said.

But in the workforce, women often disqualify themselves from seeking weightier roles if they feel they dont match the job description 100 percent, Picatti said.

My advice to an organization would be to really look at the key competencies that theyre seeking for those key C-suite roles, and be very careful about gender bias when theyre listing their key traits, and instead, add some of the key traits that women are good at, such as empathy, collaboration and emotional intelligence, Picatti said.

Those arent just touchy-feely buzzwords, she says: Employee productivity and output is greatest when employees are happy, and a major determinant of morale is a good relationship with supervisors. If supervisors dont have the emotional intelligence to cultivate good relationships, the overall business will suffer.

And as health care increasingly emphasizes wraparound services and patient-centered medical homes, with different specialists meeting daily to discuss patient care plans, the ability to collaborate across departments becomes even more crucial.

Historically, women are the caregivers of society, says Terra Palomeraz, interim chief nursing officer at Toppenish Community Hospital.

Thats what we do, she said. People definitely perform better in whatever role you give them in a business when they feel cared for, and so I think again not to put anyone in a box but I think in general, women have an amazing capacity to provide care to one another, to the people they consider their responsibility.

That doesnt mean men cannot also be empathetic, collaborative leaders; many female leaders in Yakima cited male role models who encouraged them all throughout their careers.

And those women never waited to see themselves reflected in leadership roles before charging ahead, either.

Dr. Vicki Black was the second person hired at Community Health of Central Washingtons residency program in 1993, where she served as its first residency director and later chief medical officer of the clinic before retiring in 2012.

When she graduated from Loyola Universitys medical school in 1974, she was one of 15 women out of a class of 125.

Though she may have faced gender discrimination during her career such as not getting her first-choice residency match after interviewing at 81/2 months pregnant she never paid any attention, she says.

I sort of have my path of where I want to go and I keep pushing for it, she said. Im somebody who likes leadership positions. In organizations and clubs I belonged to, I tended to end up being the president, including of the Washington State Rural Health Association.

While Black doesnt believe leadership traits are solely male or female, she thinks women still undervalue themselves in the marketplace and need better training in aspects such as pay negotiation to be more assertive.

Though women who are parents today may face greater demands on their time than mothers in the past, she hopes they dont shy away from taking on responsibilities in committees and other career-building opportunities. Black had her children during medical school and residency.

I worry a little that now because there are so many women in medicine, but they somehow feel like they cant have it all or they cant have a family and a full-time career too I dont know what to tell them, because I think they can, she said.

Supporting women in health care, not just in leadership, includes greater flexibility for women to achieve better work-life balance, leaders say.

Palomarez does a self-care check with a fellow woman who supervises, giving themselves permission to go home at a reasonable hour in the evening, because whether youre at home or at work, theres always going to be more work to be done, she said.

She earned her nursing degree while working two jobs with two children at home. The balance has remained challenging as shes moved up the ladder: As women, were in these roles where we do hold leadership positions and we can do phenomenal work; but we dont want to let go of those opportunities at home to be the caregiver.

Anita Monoian was a single parent preparing to move her family to Seattle when the CEO role at Neighborhood Health was thrust upon her in 1979, after shed spent a few weeks writing a grant for the clinic. Neighborhood Health was founded by a woman in 1975.

In those days, women were nurses and office managers but rarely decision-makers, she said. There were only a few female doctors in the Valley.

Sometimes it was exciting to be the sole woman in the room for meetings, but other times, she said, You realized that the real conversations were going on when you werent present, because women just dont understand these important things.

Major discussion topics at the time included immunization of schoolchildren and womens access to birth control. Moving into the 1980s, Monoian said, community health centers took a lead role in treating HIV/AIDS patients, who were often rebuffed by other physicians.

The decisions involved in building up community health care were daunting.

I had not given this any thought 38 years ago, she said, but, how different it is when you have diversity at the table; how much more productive it is.

And I dont just mean male-female: If you can bring true diversity to the table, youre going to be more productive, she said. But thats not always easy to do.

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Yakima Valley women contribute to boom in health care industry - Yakima Herald-Republic