Physician Scientists are uniquely positioned to bridge scientific discovery and clinical care. As such, our training involves learning clinical skills, understanding how to design and test hypotheses, as well as mastering the art of writing and presenting our findings. While these are crucial for developing our clinical-care skills and research acumen, there are innumerous other professional opportunities that physician scientists often partake in, including national or institutional leadership, medical/graduate education, outreach and mentorship, policy/advocacy, industrial consulting, and entrepreneurship. As such, training MD-PhD students often requires a personalized approach that empowers them to gain the skills necessary for their unique career interests.

Behind Her Scalpel: A Practical Guide to Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery with Stories of Female Surgeons 

Authored and Edited by Cathy Hung, DDS

Dr. Cathy Hung is a board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon and a solo practice owner in New Jersey. She is a native of Taipei, Taiwan and came to the US alone at age eighteen on a student visa. She earned her BS in psychology with a minor in music from UC Berkeley and DDS from Columbia University. She received her OMFS training from Lincoln Medical and Mental Center in the Bronx, New York. She is an alumna of the American Dental Association’s Institute for Diversity in Leadership program. She is also a speaker, writer, and Certified Life Coach in cultural competency. She is an author, blogger, and selected member of Forbes’ Women Forum and Rebecca Minkoff’s Female Founders Collective.

"Letter to a Young Female Physician: Thoughts on Life and Work" by Dr. Suzanne Koven

Dr. Suzanne Koven begins her essay collection, “Letter to a Young Female Physician: Thoughts on Life and Work”, as one might expect – with a letter.[1] As she watches a crop of incoming interns write letters to their future selves, she reflects on her own career: the pressures she faced to prove herself, to value her skills, and to serve her patients well. This was in 2017, and it seems anecdotally that the call for reflection has come earlier and earlier in medical training in recent years. As a medical student (still a year away from intern orientation), I’ve participated in innumerable letter-writing exercises just like the one that inspired Dr. Koven. In this book, Dr. KoveN shows us why these reflections are so important. Dr. Koven describes a background caught between the arts and the sciences. As the daughter of an orthopedic surgeon, surrounded from an early age by men who practiced medicine, she always had an idea of the role of the doctor. Whether she saw herself in that role is a bit more complicated – in her book, she details the struggles that she felt in her early science courses, that science felt “unnatural” to her, despite her earning good grades. She attended Yale for college, where she studied English Literature. She then went on to Johns Hopkins for medical school and residency in primary care internal medicine, after which she joined Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital where she is now Writer-in-Residence.[2]

Dr. Jennifer Plichta is a breast surgeon at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, North Carolina. She graduated from Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, Indiana and completed her residency at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois. She completed her fellowship training in breast surgical oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Plichta is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Population Health Sciences at Duke University, and she serves as the Director of the Breast Risk Assessment Clinic and Co-Director of the Clinical Cancer Genetics Program at the Duke Cancer Institute. In addition, Dr. Plichta takes time to mentor many students throughout different stages of training at Duke University School of Medicine. She also helps to educate her local community about breast cancer and breast health.

Mentor Spotlight: Dr. Minerva Romero Arenas

Dr. Romero is an Endocrine and General Surgeon at NYP Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. She is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Romero Arenas completed a fellowship in Oncologic Surgical Endocrinology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. She completed her General Surgery Residency at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. She earned her Medical Doctorate and Master of Public Health degrees from The University of Arizona College of Medicine and the Zuckerman College of Public Health. She studied Cell Biology and French at Arizona State University as an undergraduate.

BOOK REVIEW: A Not Entirely Benign Procedure: Four Years as a Medical Student by Dr. Perri Klass

Reviewed by: Ariana Ginsberg

An Interview with Dr. Diana Gabriela Maldonado Pintado

Letter to a Young Female Physician 

Book written by Dr. Suzanne Koven
Review provided by Charlotte B. Smith