I am thankful as I look back on the long path that has brought me to where I am today. I have had the most incredible mentors and opportunities to do the thing I love most: to take care of sick patients who need vascular care and to be a mom. So many of our patients have limited family support, limited access to care, and have been dealt a bad hand when it comes to health. Vascular surgery as a field is not only complex but forever evolving, more so than any other medical or surgical field. I have personally gone from sewing PTFE grafts to bare metal stents and trying to load them onto balloons to using stent-grafts off the shelf. I tell patients who come in with venous outflow obstructions that 10 years ago we only could offer open surgery, and today we use IVUS and have venous stents readily available to use when needed. This incredible advancement in technology is mesmerizing. Learning and forging forward has not been an easy task, but necessary to stay relevant as a vascular surgeon.
The road to get to where I am today has been long and at times very difficult. When I asked several of my professors at UT Southwestern to write letters supporting my applications to general surgery programs, I was told that women don’t do surgery because they have families. I said “yes sir!” and smiled thinking I have to get out of Texas and go somewhere that will accept me as a female trainee. New York City proved to be a fabulous place to train. Two women surgeons at St Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital were pivotal in my career. One was a cardiac surgeon who was incredibly gifted and focused. She talked to me about specialty choices. The second was Dr. Donna Mendes. Donna was a remarkable mentor. As an African-American woman, she dealt with injustice and bias that was overt. She always held her head high and forged forward, never allowing others to demean her or get in her way. I learned so much from her over the years. I respect her as a true trailblazer for women in vascular surgery.
I proceeded to do my fellowship in Albany, New York. Clem Darling and Dhiraj Shah gave me the foundation to hone my skills and opportunities to build my career as a vascular surgeon. Clem and Shah (that’s what we lovingly called Dr. Shah) believed in the importance of family life. I have been blessed with a wonderful daughter who is now almost 20 years old. As a baby, she attended morning reports while Shah would hold her. Then it would be off to Albany Med daycare with Sean Roddy’s, and Phil Paty’s children. I remember attending the SVS and looking around at a sea of blue and grey suits. You could easily pick out the ladies- a handful at best back then. Julie Freishlag was always the one in a beautiful, pastel-colored outfit. She has been such an amazing mentor and supporter to so many of us over the years. I remember the days when Vivian Ghatan and I brought our daughters (and nannies) to society meetings. The girls would play while we attended the sessions. Vivian was also so pivotal to my growth as a surgeon. Always, in her calm, a kind voice asking me “So where are we now? Let’s work on your CV and plan out a one-year goal for you”.
Juggling family life and career has been tough over the years. At work, I am a surgeon, Chief of Surgery at Samaritan Hospital, and a member of several hospital committees. I continue my academic interests and serve on society boards. At home, I am MOM. To survive, I have surrounded myself with a true team of amazing people. This team has three parts. Those who have taken care of me, my home, and my daughter as she was growing up, those who have kept my head above water at work, and those who have been there to support me like family, including my partners Dr. John Taggert and Dr. Yaron Sternbach and their respective families.
It is the fact that I AM a mom and a woman (who learned to love to sew and embroider as a little girl) that gives me the inner confidence I need to be a vascular surgeon. It is my maternal instinct that naturally helps me care for sick patients, hold their families’ hands, and comfort them when things don’t go well- or celebrate with them when they heal. Sewing little anastomoses makes me really happy. I always say that sewing silk shantung is actually as difficult as dissecting out a re-do groin. I know! I made 5 silk shantung dresses for my bridesmaids. Would I ever admit that in an interview? 25 year ago- NO WAY. Today, I am proud of it! As I attend vascular meetings, I see many more women every year. On the podium, on committees, on executive boards, women are taking action and paving new ways. We network, we support one another, and we forge forward. We continue to build our teams, manage our work and home lives to the best of our abilities. The guilt for not always being there for a kid function, or not having had time to cook dinner is unwarranted. We cannot be “perfect” always as society seems to expect us to be. I am proud of my daughter, grateful for my career, and I proudly rely on my teams.