Becker's Hospital Review

70 THOUGHT LEADERSHIP 'I wanted to do more than just be upset': Dr. Esther Choo tackles gender equity with Time's Up Healthcare By Alyssa Rege W omen make up roughly 80 percent of the healthcare work- force, but only 11 percent are CEOs, according to Esther Choo, MD, one of the founders of Time's Up Healthcare, which launched March 1. Time's Up Healthcare is part of the national Time's Up movement, which was created in January 2018 to draw attention to issues of ha- rassment and gender inequality in the entertainment industry. Since coming together roughly six months ago, Time's Up Healthcare has grown to include 50 founding members and 13 senior advisers. It is led by an eight-person steering committee, including Dr. Choo, who also works as an associate professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health & Sciences University's School of Medicine in Portland. Dr. Choo spoke with Becker's Hospital Review about her experience and research into gender equity and harassment, her involvement with Time's Up Healthcare and what she hopes the organization will accomplish. Editor's note: Responses were lightly edited for length and clarity. Question: You've been in the public eye for such a long time advocating for women and for gender equity. What has your experience in medicine been like? Dr. Esther Choo: Well, my experience with medicine has really been evolving. Initially, I had a handful of stories of things I had expe- rienced and my immediate fears. But we started to realize that as we developed a bigger and bigger network regionally and then na- tionally, the unpleasant experiences and challenges and barriers to progression we experienced were not unique. ese experiences are common to everyone in healthcare. We looked at the data, and the data really supported that these problems of harassment and inequity are really consistent across healthcare, and they are not improving on their own. In some cases they seem to be getting worse. But discus- sions about gender bias and sexual harassment have really exploded over the past year, and I think it's finally coming to a tipping point where people have more awareness and a feeling that it's time for this to come to light. It feels very organic and right for me to be involved in this now. I've been talking about these issues forever, but you know, I'm an emer- gency medicine doctor and we don't just sit around and pontificate about things. I'm in a very action-oriented field, so it felt time to do something other than just observe and educate. I wanted to do more than be upset about it. I wanted to work toward positive change. It feels like the most wonderful outlet for all the frustration I had in this area. Q: How did you get involved with Time's Up? Where did the partnership come from? EC: It was a nice series of events. I have a consultancy called Equity Quotient that I started with a friend that examines gender discrim- ination in medicine. Our goal was to improve the measurement piece around culture for women in healthcare. My co-founder and I were on social media talking about the company and a psychiatry resident tagged Time's Up in one of our conversations. From there, a communications director at Time's Up reached out to us, and the rest is history. We realized quickly that our goals and objectives aligned so closely with the Time's Up organization that we had admired for a while, and it really felt like like a no-brainer. Q: What were some of the goals that you and Time's Up had in common? EC: Time's Up really sought to bring gender equity issues out from the dark corners they were hidden in and really bring those issues to the surface and to the public. ese are problems that are hidden in so many ways, from people having these experiences and maybe being ashamed of coming forward or feeling like they have no power or agency to bring them forward. at it could ruin their careers. I think people felt a lot of futility and started feeling hopeless about the lack of change. With Time's Up, we saw that there was a lot of value in talking about these things in a public way and that speaking publicly can be more effective than quietly trying to bring about incremental change. I think that general approach and framework was one we really needed in healthcare. Q: Movements like this can't really work with solely wom- en involved — we know men have to be allies. How does the organization plan to get men involved in the conver- sation? EC: Yeah, exactly. We released a video of male allies supporting health- care. We've heard from many men asking how they can help. e truth is that there are oen more men than women in leadership positions. Some may argue that women can work with men to bring these issues up, that times have changed. We've worked very hard to communicate that this change is for everybody, not just for women. We welcome men's support. We look forward to working with everyone. Q: Time's Up Healthcare has garnered support from many healthcare associations. Can you talk a little bit more about those partnerships? EC: ose partnerships were a really wonderful and important part of Time's Up Healthcare. I mean, our organization isn't pretending like we invented something new. ere have been groups working on under- standing issues of gender equity and harassment for years, and what we wanted to do was first amplify their great work, strengthen it and bring it to the surface. We also want to collaborate with them in the future as "I'm in a very action-oriented field, so it felt time to do something other than just observe and educate. I wanted to do more than be upset about it. I wanted to work toward positive change." – Esther Choo, MD, Co-founder of Time's Up Healthcare

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