Women in Medicine:
Why the Leadership Gap Persists and How to Stop Waiting

Transforming Healthcare Coaching Podcast — Episode 124: Women in Medicine with Dr. Shikha Jain. Host Lillian Liang Emlet, MD MS CHSE CPC ELI-MP in conversation with Shikha Jain, MD FACP, hematology and oncology physician and founder of the Women in Medicine® Summit. Published August 31, 2026.

Shikha Jain: When I was pregnant with my twins, I was told, "What have you done? You're never gonna get a leadership position. You've ruined your career." That is not a reason to not offer someone a leadership position if they are the right candidate for the job. And that, I think we need to get past that mindset of why should we not hire a woman?

Lillian Liang Emlet: Women have made up roughly half of medical school classes for years. But if you look around up at the podiums at conferences, department chairs, C-suite of healthcare systems, start counting. It's not 50%. Somewhere between the white coat ceremony and the leadership table, women in medicine are handed a quiet instruction to just wait. Keep waiting for your promotion, keep waiting to be sponsored, wait until it's your turn. And the waiting costs us our careers, ideas, and leaders that the healthcare systems are losing out on. And so my guest today, Dr. Shikha Jain, is an oncologist who stopped waiting and put a national movement together instead. She has more than one nonprofit. She has a summit, which I'm super excited to go to later on this year, a book and a platform all built on this conviction that the gap isn't a pipeline problem. It's a permission in ourselves and also for society and the system to bring women to the table in leadership. And this is the Transforming Healthcare Coaching Podcast. Thanks so much for being here today, Shikha.

Shikha Jain: Thanks for having me.

Lillian Liang Emlet: So I want to introduce you a little bit to our audience. You are a board-certified heme/onc physician. You are associate professor of medicine at UIC in Chicago, and you are director of communication strategies, also a director of digital innovation and rural transformation initiatives for the University of Illinois Health Care system. You've done quite a bit. Since 2019, you were tired of seeing how healthcare's gender gap was not really making any progress at all. And so before the pandemic, you founded this Women in Medicine summit, and it's evolved now in 2021 to become a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and you are the founder and the board chair. You also have obviously are a TED Talk speaker, and also co-founded IMPACT, a nonprofit that mobilizes healthcare professionals to influence health policy and public health communication. And so we're super excited to dive into some conversation today.

Shikha Jain: Yeah, I'm really excited, and thank you so much for having me. I love what you're doing, and I'm excited to have this conversation with you.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Oh, so thank you so much. So women have been half of medical school classes for years, leadership numbers have really barely moved. Walk us through what that gap feels like from inside the careers of the women physicians you've watched for so many years as you bring us all together to begin to talk, sponsor, make change, and support each other.

Shikha Jain: So it's not an ambition problem. It's not a motivation problem. It's not an intelligence or a skill set problem. Many of the women I know who have self-selected out of clinical jobs, out of healthcare, have decided to leave medicine altogether, have not done it because they didn't want to be in medicine. If you think about it, we go through college, we go through four years of med school, we go through three to seven years of residency, we go to three to four years of fellowship. All of these things, we lose a lot of our twenties and thirties. We are in debt for many years, and we have to work really hard to get to where we are. So the women who are leaving are not leaving because they were not motivated. I mean, we all know if we're in the healthcare field how hard it is to actually become a fully board-certified physician. What happens is every single time these women get up for a promotion, or they're considering taking on a leadership position, or they think they should be considered for speaking on the podium at a conference, or they wanna be first author on a paper, they're told, "No," or they're told, "You're not qualified enough," despite the fact that their qualifications are equal, if not superior, to their male colleagues. They are penalized for being a woman. And I don't say this ever as an us versus them situation. This is not men versus women. There's a lot of men who also want to fix the system. The problem is the system was built before women were actually in the system. So the way that the healthcare system was built was really based on men leading, men working, and men having, in most cases, a spouse or a partner at home to help pick up the slack. And then when you think about traditionally how people stereotypically think of leaders, it's often that patriarchal view of a male leader. They talk about men who are more ambitious, who are more authoritative. And the skill sets that women have that actually make them exceptional leaders, that actually improve patient outcomes, that actually improve the amount of money healthcare systems bring in, things like being collaborative, listening, being empathic. A lot of those things that are often stereotypically assigned to women are not seen as strengths, and so because of that, they are not put into these positions. And so these gaps that exist, as you mentioned, whether it's leadership, whether it's speaking opportunities, whether it's awards, whether it's the pay gap, where it's been estimated that a woman over her career will make two to three million dollars less than her male colleagues for doing the exact same work. A lot of women realize all of this in their career, and they say, "Forget this, I could be doing more good or making more money or working in a less toxic environment and having more time to do the other things I enjoy. Why am I killing myself to work in a field that doesn't appreciate me, doesn't recognize the work I'm doing, and doesn't pay me what I'm valued?"

Lillian Liang Emlet: Yeah. You know, I think it's interesting too, just like compound interest, the biggest problem too is the fact that early on is right when you're starting your family and you also potentially are looking for a partner or wanting to do other things in addition to, career or a job in medicine, and it's just too much to handle, to be able to think that we can actually do all of the different projects and also raise your family, and potentially with elder care, oftentimes there's a sandwich generation where we're also dealing with everything else for the entire generational care for the family. And because of that, once the gap begins, the gap just compounds over time.

Shikha Jain: And I wanna add a couple things to what you just said. So number one, the gap starts even before some of those challenges happen. So there was a study that came out of New York that showed residents who were graduating at the same time with the same credentials from the same institution, looking at their CVs, men were being offered higher starting salaries than women. So when you talk about the pay gap, if you start at a lower salary to start, the chance of you ever catching up is much lower. The second thing that you mentioned, you know, trying to do all these things at the same time, the problem is society as a whole puts all those things on women. So yes, women are the ones typically carrying the pregnancy. If you're pregnant, you carry the pregnancy. But we have no maternity leave in this country that's guaranteed. We have support systems that don't exist when you come back to work. Many places don't even have places for women to pump. So I push back on what you said. It is possible to do all of these things. The only way it's possible, though, is not to, as the meme goes, to expect women to work like they don't have a home life and a family, and have a family and assume they don't have a work life. It's really figuring out, how do we support those women? And that goes back to the fundamental issue, which is all of this was started when women weren't in the workforce, so they didn't have to think about maternity leave. They didn't have to think about pumping breaks. They didn't have to think about supporting with childcare because in most heterosexual couples that I've spoken to, if a child is sick at home, the man would often say, "Oh, well, I can't miss work." And so the woman is scrambling to figure that out. It shouldn't be the default falling on the female partner. It should be a partnership. And so it's not only what's happening in the work space, it's also what's happening at home. And we are seeing a transition where more and more men in heterosexual partnerships are starting to step up and support their partners when it comes to these challenges. But it's not enough because society still will default to the woman. I mean, if anyone has children, I can imagine the school usually calls the mom before they call the dad. That is just because that's how things have been for generations, and so we need to start rethinking how we frame what a dual working family looks like.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Yeah. So we actually had a guest on the podcast Dr. Rebecca Thompson. We are actually doing her book, Held Together, which is a story about different stories of motherhood and what that looks like. And there obviously is many different types of stories in this book including how you become a parent, whether it's adoptive, IVF, same-gendered couples, and how that process even occurs. In that story and in the book, we also talk about the fact that there is so much challenges and differences in terms of how do we as a society help actually make a place where we can work and also have a family and have a life. So no matter how you come to it the support systems for men and women are very, very challenged to be able to do that. I mean, even just looking at the timing of different epochs in our lives, whether it's we're supporting little kids versus the school-aged children, even for the college-aged kids, it's hard. There's different needs at different times.

Shikha Jain: Absolutely, and I think, you hit the nail on the head. We can do everything. We just can't do everything all at once is something we talk about a lot. And when it comes to thinking about how do we support our women, the thing that always gets me is we have some incredible, brilliant, ambitious, hardworking women who have transformed healthcare, have transformed tech, have transformed science, have transformed so many things. Imagine how many women we've chased out of the field because we've not supported them, who could have made these transformative changes. But because we were not able to, as a society, figure out how do we support these women, we're losing out on some of the most brilliant minds that we could have benefited from.

Lillian Liang Emlet: And it happens, I think the reality is too our work schedules. Our work schedule, I don't know how 12-hour shifts really are quite challenging for any family to sustain without a greater support. So the reality is a lot of times we're told to wait, right? And so I think we're waiting or we're told that we need to go do something else different for a little bit. I'm curious whether that's showed up for you in your career so far, whether you see it even in your own life as you're trying to support and make a movement, make a change, support people to be able to find the network that they need to be able to elevate beyond this. And I'm also curious with this waiting and being told to just stay in place for a while, that you need more experience, how do we break through that false narrative, I suppose?

Shikha Jain: I'm smiling because I have, like, a whole list of stories I could share you about, with you about people who've told me to wait. I have had... When I was pregnant with my twins, I was told, "What have you done? You're never gonna get a leadership position. You've ruined your career." When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was a fellow, and I was told that this was gonna derail my career and that I would need to wait so long to do X, Y, and Z. And so I've been told numerous times. When I was actually applying for my first job, I had one child at the time, and the person I was interviewing with told me that he would recommend I only work part-time because he was sure I was gonna wanna have more children, and it would just be better for me if I worked part-time. So I've heard... These are the milder stories. Come to the Women in Medicine Summit, and I'll tell you more spicy ones. But I think that for me, I'm still being told... I have young kids. I have a 12-year-old daughter. I have twin boys who are eight. I'm always being told, "Oh, you can't do this because you've got little kids," or, "You shouldn't take this opportunity because you have these children." My kids are a part of what I do. We just hosted a conference this last weekend, and my daughter came and volunteered. My sons and my daughter yesterday were helping me sort things for our upcoming summit. So I have pushed through that by getting my kids involved and letting them know that they are just as important, if not the most important things in my life, but I'm also trying to do good for others. And I want them to also have that service mindset where they understand family is first. Family is always first. They will always come first. But there's also opportunities in our lives where we can give back to others, where we can help others, and that's how I view my work both as an oncologist and my work doing the Women in Medicine work that I do. And so what I have found when I've been told that, "No, you're not ready for this because you're too young," or, "No, you should wait until your kids are older," I pivot, and I find other things to do. That's literally how Women in Medicine has grown into what it is. When I was told in my career, "Well, the leadership opportunity will be available for you in the next five to 10 years. In that time period, just keep your head down and keep working," I say, "Great. I will keep my head down and keep working, but that doesn't mean that I'm not gonna lead, and it doesn't mean I'm not gonna continue to grow." And so that's why the summit was started when my twins were only a little over a year old. I mean, the planning for it started actually right when I came back from maternity leave, and that's why I've continued to grow that as a way to really try to drive change because I think there's more than one way to be mission-driven and more than one way to drive change in our nation and in our healthcare systems.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Yeah. So this is a strong lesson to all the healthcare leaders who are listening to this podcast about as you develop your managerial and leadership skills, it is quite easy to accidentally begin the process to not nurture and have succession planning for your organization. When we don't in our organizations include the whole human that is in front of us to be able to find a place for people to devote their talents to our organization, we'll just lose them. And this is what every single organization is facing right now, whether it be professional medical societies, big national organizations, which is why we're gonna get into your summit here a little bit. The reality is, for people to want to come back, who tell their friends that this is worth coming to, and that there are so many independent voices now, including this podcast, other people trying to do something different means that your organization, your large healthcare systems are actually losing out. And so that's a lesson for all healthcare leaders, especially the younger managers. I think it's never with malice that people say these things. These are internalized biases that are just their expectation, what they've been taught by their mentors in terms of squelching people's passions and ideas. And we often forget that even the most junior assistant nurse manager, assistant physician, lead associate directors, there are lots of people out there who, if their mindset is not about growing other people, this is what accidentally happens. The pipeline begins to shrink because people will go devote our energies and talents elsewhere.

Shikha Jain: Absolutely. And one thing that I love about the summit, about our nonprofit is we have created a place where people can be creative and can advance their careers outside of the traditional norm. And for me, I always joke, so I'm in academics, and I joke that I'm not your traditional academic because my career path and what I've done is not what many traditional academics do. I have published, I speak nationally, I check all the boxes that you're supposed to in academia, but I haven't done it in a way that most academics will look at it and think, "Oh, this woman's definitely an academic physician." There's a status quo-type mindset in academia, and because it's been, as you said, it's been the same way for so long, sometimes it's hard for people to think outside the box to evolve. We're seeing more of it now. I mean, we have to now, right, with social media, with AI, with all the things happening. But academia in general has often been slow to adapt when it comes to the changes that we're seeing in society. My hope is that we'll start to see that accelerate over the next decade or so. And a huge part of that is making sure that we don't just rule out a woman for a leadership position because she's pregnant or because she's of childbearing age or because she just got married. I've been in search committees, and I've heard people say, "Oh, we don't want to have this person lead because I overheard a rumor that she wants to get pregnant in the next year, and we won't be able to deal with her being gone for three months." That is not a reason to not offer someone a leadership position if they are the right candidate for the job. And that, I think we need to get past that mindset of why should we not hire a woman? Because she might have babies, which I just want to remind people is a huge part of the reason our society continues. So that is a necessary need as well.

Lillian Liang Emlet: It's amazing too because what you just described is, it's on a rumor. So a decision was put, a piece of data was put out there that was explicitly stated that it was a rumor. It wasn't even necessarily a true factually confirmed possibility, and yet that enters into a discussion inside behind closed doors. Fascinating. So, and you stopped waiting, and basically you built the Women in Medicine Summit in 2019. What did you have to believe about yourself and the process to be able to achieve that back in 2019?

Shikha Jain: So for those of you who've never heard me speak before, my dad is a surgeon, and I talk about him and my mom all the time because they are my greatest support system. They always have been. So my dad had created a conference a few years earlier for vascular surgery, and I asked him, I said, "Dad, how hard is it to create a conference?" And he was like, "Oh, it's not that hard. I can help you." And I said, "Okay, sounds good." So I assumed, okay, it's not that hard. Let's just do it. The summit, the first summit, we had 450 people attend, and my parents walked in, and my dad said, "What have you done?" And I said, "You said it wasn't hard." But for me, it was — I just knew this was needed. And I'm always of the mindset if I decide I'm going to do something, I just do it because we spend so much of our time waiting. When you're in college, you're waiting for med school. When you're in med school, you're waiting for med school to finish. When you're a resident, you're waiting for residency to finish. It felt like I was just taking all these steps in my career. When I finally became an attending, I was really interested in doing something that was gonna make a difference. I never imagined that I would be doing this. I never thought women in medicine or this type of work was a part of my career trajectory. The reason it all came about is actually when I started doing more media, when I started writing more op-eds and getting more active on social media, I started seeing other women who were sharing stories similar to the stories I had internalized over the last decade of my life. And I had always thought that those issues were my fault. I thought that I didn't get a position because of something I had done wrong. I thought that someone had spoken to me a certain way because I must be the problem. And when I started seeing these other women sharing stories on social media, it was like a light bulb went off, and I said, "Oh my God, I'm not the problem." And I grew up in a supportive environment. I came from a medical family. If I didn't realize that I wasn't the problem, if I didn't realize that the system was an issue, imagine all of these other women out there who don't have a support system, who aren't able to navigate this path. They must think they're the problem. We have to do something about it. And so that's where the idea for the summit came from, and that's where I asked my dad about creating a conference because I wanted to create a space where women could realize they were not alone, they were not the problem, and they should be putting their name in the hat for different opportunities, and they should be fighting for those opportunities. They should be advocating for their friends and their mentors and their sponsors and their colleagues because we were getting left out not because we were not the right person for the job, but because somebody heard a rumor or because somebody had some implicit bias that made them think a woman could not take on a certain position. And so for me, I mean, I just, I said, "I'm gonna try this. We're gonna do this. Let's see how it goes." The year prior, I actually was at Northwestern, and I'd started a Women in Medicine symposium there, so that was in 2018, and it was very successful. It was more internal for Northwestern attendees, but so I had proof of concept. I knew that this was a need, and so that's how, it evolved into me creating the Women in Medicine summit. And then the pandemic happened, and when the pandemic happened, we launched all these other programs, and my dad, being the amazing sponsor he is, came to me and said, "Honey, I think this is more than a conference. You need an organization." And that's how we ended up becoming the 501(c)(3).

Lillian Liang Emlet: Interesting. And so what can people expect by coming to the Women in Medicine Summit in Chicago next month?

Shikha Jain: Oh my gosh, I tell people it's the most fun you can ever have at a conference because I don't have time to go to things that are boring, so it's a lot of fun. There's obviously incredible lectures. There's great CME conference content. The Glaucomfleckens, so Dr. Will Flanary and his wife Kristin Flanary are speaking. We have Dr. Deb Houry who used to work for the CDC. We have Dr. Joanne Conroy from Dartmouth. I mean, Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, who's all over social media talking about women's health and fertility. You should come just for the speakers, honestly. They are just that good. But more than that, we have built a space that's really open to everyone. I never want anyone to show up at a conference that I host and think that they don't belong. Everyone finds their people there. We are so inclusive of just about anyone who attends. We have men and women who attend. People of all genders are welcome. And you find a community, and you can feel the energy in the room. I mean, I don't often go to conferences and feel like the room is vibrating from the people in it. I can't even describe to you what it feels like being in that space. And then if you like to really party, Friday night we have our EmpowerHer Med Gala where we present our I Stand With Her Awards. We have lots of dancing and signature drinks, and it's really, again, just a time for us. I don't want to just be providing education and empowerment. I also want to be providing people a good time because at the end of the day, we have very limited amounts of time to devote to ourselves, whether it's professional advancement or whether it's just letting loose and having fun with friends. And so I've seen people use our summit as a way to have a reunion with their med school or residency friends. They all get together in Chicago, and we end Saturday afternoon, so you have Saturday night to go out and enjoy the city and all day Sunday. So, it really is an astounding experience to see the level of engagement and excitement at the conference, and I love it every year. It's my favorite weekend of the year every year.

Lillian Liang Emlet: I'm so excited to be able to go this year. And the biggest thing too is the fact you're centrally located. So really there's no excuse for anyone because everyone around the both coasts can meet in the middle. You know, I kind of want to transition a little bit to your book. In your book, An Evolution of Empowerment, you gathered dozens of voices, women's voices, physician voices, allies. And across all those stories, can you share like a sort of sneak peek of like what the common thread was in those stories?

Shikha Jain: So first I want to give a shout-out to my co-editor, Dr. Avital O'Glasser, without whom the book never would have come to fruition. So the way the book came about was we had a blog, and we realized we had these incredible voices of people from all over. And so, we compiled those into An Evolution of Empowerment. You'll see some Greek mythology in there. A central thread is talking about Cassandra. If you don't know who Cassandra is, look her up. It's a very interesting story relating to how women's voices are often silenced, and women speak up, and people ignore them. There's allyship in there. There's conversations about allyship and what others can do to step up and advocate in the moment. And the book is so incredible because it's not just for those who are in healthcare. It's also for those who are outside of healthcare to understand what the struggles are within the healthcare system. And this book is, it's a few years old now, so I bet if we published an updated version, the stories we hear now, especially after living through a pandemic, would be even more powerful.

Lillian Liang Emlet: I think what makes all of this sort of sad for me is, I'm 20 years into my career. I'm a full professor, and I hear stories from, your generation, just a few years behind. It's not that different. And then what's sad is, like, the medical students are telling me exactly the same thing. So in 20 years, we've made very little progress. The fact that, I still remember when I was pregnant, I hid it for the majority of my pregnancy until I couldn't hide it anymore. And then the reality is just like you had said, there's so many things that happen with us in terms of regulations. And it's surprising to me that there are stories of women who literally if, when they have to go out on maternity leave, four weeks, six weeks, 12 weeks, they are not paid necessarily. There isn't even fair replacement for wages or time or job guarantees in general. And it's crazy to think that, in our physician land much less, I mean, and that's just the tip of the iceberg for the rest of society, right? I mean, so there's many other women out there. And so it's great that you have stories that are applicable for anyone in any sector to be able to relate to. Which then transitions to me to let's end on a positive note. Well, probably someone out there listening has just been passed over for something that she feels that she has earned. And so what's the first concrete move that when you're passed over, when you're told to wait, when you're told to basically just to stop in place, what's the next concrete move a woman listening should make this week in healthcare?

Shikha Jain: So the first thing, if you're passed over for something, ask why. I don't think there's anything wrong with asking, "Tell me why I was not selected for this, because I'd like to improve my chances for the next time." And don't look at it as confrontational. Look at it as, "How can I improve?" Because it's possible maybe you did have things that were missing, maybe you did need to improve, and, you can fill in those gaps. So that's the first thing I would say, is ask why. The second thing I would say is find somebody who has a position similar to yours and ask them what you can do to get to that position, and try to get them to be your advocate, your sponsor. Feel free to tell them, "Hey, if you hear of something coming up, I'm very interested. Please keep my name in mind." And my path has been very windy. I really, truly never believed that I'd be doing what I'm doing today. I'm, I love what I'm doing, but it is not where I saw my path going. Sometimes you may end up going down a path that you may not have foreseen, and it will become the best thing that ever happened to you. So that cheesy, old adage that every... What is it? Every door that closes, a window opens or another opportunity opens. So I think that there are opportunities there. Don't get discouraged. Come to the summit or check out our website, and we have a lot of resources there as well. And one thing I think that's really important in medicine, we really silo ourselves in our specialties, in our hospitals, in our fields. One of the things Women in Medicine has tried to do is break down those silos, because an ENT physician in Iowa may get some really great advice from a family medicine doc in Las Vegas. You never know. They might have dealt with very similar situations. The communities that we build around ourselves are incredibly powerful. And the conference we just hosted last week, called COSMO, one of the things that one of the speakers said that really resonated with me was, "Your net worth is your network." And so you need to think about your network and how you're utilizing it in a way that can help you navigate a career trajectory for yourself.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Such great pieces of wisdom. I would agree with you wholeheartedly. The reality is, you will go wherever your interests and your passions are best supported and delivered. And so if someone says no to you, it's just their loss. And so where you might end up going may be somewhere you never imagined. And while it feels sad in the moment, there is definitely so many other opportunities out there. And I think that's the most important thing is with diversification. Even in now branching to this land of coaching and podcasting and writing and doing other things, I've come to realize that I have been living in my own little bubble. And even as a national educator, I've done all kinds of different identities. But when you expand your network, and now meeting other people like Women in Medicine Summit, to go out and diversify your network, you'd be surprised, like, what you might actually encounter to see what it might be like to understand what a leader in communication, to be a leader in digital transformation, to find something new to do. So Shikha, thank you so much for this conversation. You've given all of us in healthcare something to look forward to and be curious about. How can people find you? How can people get in touch with you? What's the best way to reach you?

Shikha Jain: So you can find me on most social channels. I'm @ShikhaJainMD on Twitter, on Instagram. I'm not on Twitter as much anymore, but Instagram, on LinkedIn, on Facebook. You can find me all those places. You can email me, shikhajainmd@gmail.com. You can learn more about Women in Medicine at wimedicine.org, and you can follow us on all channels. We're @wimedicineorg on almost all channels as well.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Awesome. Thank you so much. And so everyone, thank you so much for listening to the very nitty-gritty end of this episode. And if there's something that you're interested in listening about, please email us at podcast@transforminghealthcarecoaching.com, and we'll see you on the next episode. Please share with a friend or a colleague who needs to hear this today.