CLOSING THE GAP
Honoring Dr. Dorothy Klenke Nash, first female neurosurgeon, with a call for more representation
When Dr. Martina Stippler received emails during her residency, they were often addressed to three groups — ladies, gentlemen and Martina.
“It was obvious that I was not a gentleman, but for people who wrote the letter … Martina, she’s not a lady either. It was totally fine with me because ladies was used as a derogatory term,” said Dr. Stippler, a neurosurgeon and the director of neurotrauma at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
Dr. Stippler spoke about the need for more female representation in neurosurgery and her experiences in the male-dominated field at a lecture Wednesday evening at the Pittsburgh Golf Club with UPMC’s neurosurgery department. The event was in honor of Dr. Dorothy Klenke Nash, who became the first female neurosurgeon in the United States in 1928 and remained the only one until 1960.
Nash practiced medicine in New York City before moving to Pittsburgh with her husband, Charles B. Nash, in 1936. She was appointed a senior surgeon at St. Margaret’s Hospital in 1942, joined the inaugural University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurosurgery and became an instructor at UPMC. After retiring in 1965, she dedicated her time to her family and the Catholic faith before she died in 1976 at the age of 77. She had two children, George and Dorothy Patricia.
Shortly following her appointment as senior surgeon at St. Margaret’s Hospital in 1942, Nash joined the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurosurgery and became an instructor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Her granddaughter, Cynthia Davis, attended the event and said Nash, whom she called “Grandma Dr. Nash,” was a “kind, caring and powerful” woman. She fondly remembers waiting in her office at the hospital as a child while she looked in on patients.
Dr. Stippler said while representation has improved since Nash’s time, there is a lot more ground to cover. Namely, she believes women need to feel a sense of belonging rather than simply trying to fit in. Currently, just 8.1% of board-certified neurosurgeons and 19.3% of neurosurgery residents are women.
She also cited studies that found that female surgery residents are given less independent operating room time by male and female faculty, female surgeons are referred fewer surgical cases and less complex cases, and female surgeons are “punished” by referring physicians for a poor outcome compared to male surgeons.
Dr. Stippler said there are still explicit and implicit biases in the field that make it harder for
women to succeed in their careers and advance to leadership positions. She said female neurosurgeons are often asked if they’re nurses or told that they’re “too pretty to be a neurosurgeon.” She added that while 90% of male neurosurgeons are fathers, just 50% of female neurosurgeons are mothers.
Dr. Stippler remembers once telling her bosses that she couldn’t attend meetings during a specific time in order to see her kids, and they replied, “Oh my God, Martina, why didn’t you tell us earlier? The men tell us all the time that they don’t want to meet at this time.”
She recalled: “I was flabbergasted, because I said, ‘Oh no, I need to show up for this meeting – otherwise they don’t think I’m invested or is it just a woman who can’t hack it.’”
She said this is an example of how the culture within neurosurgery needs to change to allow surgeons to have more work-life balance. She said surgeons should be able to achieve the satisfaction of curing pain and making diagnoses, while still taking their kids to dance practice.
“I don’t necessarily want to make this about gender,” she said. “I’m talking about the next generation [of surgeons] that wants to have a life.”
Dr. Robert Friedlander, the department chair of neurological surgery at UPMC, said it’s important that UPMC and institutions across the country continue to work on diversity, equity and inclusion, and not just because it’s a “trendy” topic.
Leslie Davis, the president and chief executive of UPMC, said that as the first woman in that role, she’s seen firsthand the importance of female representation and mentorship in leadership positions. She said that women make up 75% of UPMC’s workforce and 69% of the staff at leadership levels.
“We’re proud of that number, but we also recognize that we have to close the gap on many other disparities, certainly racial disparities, that exist among our leadership ranks,” she said.
“What I want to do is just pause and think about what I can change. Is there something on Monday that I can do differently that has a different outcome on Tuesday,” Ms. Davis continued. “These small gestures certainly have a very large impact. We should strive for big change, but we have to start somewhere. There will never be another Dorothy Nash, but because of her we have Martina Stippler.”