The ASH Women in Hematology (WIH) Working Group was convened in 2019 to increase awareness and advocacy for gender equity in hematology. To date, the WIH Working Group has been involved with multiple activities focused on supporting the career development of women in the field.
We planned and delivered a wellattended annual WIH Networking Dinner at the 2021 ASH Annual Meeting in Atlanta and successfully nominated several talented women hematologists for prestigious ASH awards. Additionally, in celebration of Women’s History Month, we hosted a panel discussion in March 2022 moderated by ASH President Dr. Jane Winter, in which we invited participants and talked about challenges faced by women in academic hematology. We had an audience of well over 100 participants, and we received incredibly positive feedback, including interest in and support for similar events in the future.
In fact, by the spring of 2022, interest in the WIH Working Group had increased so rapidly that ASH approved the expansion of our membership to provide the necessary capacity to support even more initiatives for ASH’s women members. We opened a call for nominations during the summer of 2022 and received almost 100 applications. We reviewed all applications and —keeping in mind multiple factors including diversity of background and experience, level of career, and commitment to past and future advocacy for gender equity — we were able to accept 18 new members. Our new members include trainees and faculty spanning the range from early to late career, international members, and hematologists with a variety of career paths, including both academic and industry. This brings our total membership to 29, in addition to our co-chairs and liaisons to the Trainee Council.
The full WIH Working Group convened at our first meeting in late September 2022. We discussed plans for the WIH networking event at this year’s annual meeting in New Orleans, during which we will host keynote speaker Dr. Arghavan Salles (Stanford University), an internationally recognized scholar in gender equity in medicine. Following Dr. Salles’ talk, attendees will have the opportunity for one-on-one networking with other women in hematology. We hope many new mentee-mentor and sponsee-sponsor relationships will emerge from the session!
Our group made the decision to focus on several priority areas:
- Career development: new panel discussions on academic promotion, negotiating and recognizing one’s true value, setting boundaries, and work-life integration
- Networking: virtual (and local inperson) events for all interested ASH members, with each event centered around a topic of interest
- Mentorship: promoting new ways of connecting women looking for mentors
- ASH annual meeting events and nominations: identifying talented female hematologists for ASH awards and committee memberships.
We look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with our members and with all hematologists identifying as women, as well as our male allies, to promote gender equity and career advancement for women in hematology!
Ariela Marshall, MD, is Director, Women’s Thrombosis and Hemostasis; Director, Program in Gender Equity, Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I); Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Division of Hematology, Penn Medicine/University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.