
Top Stories 
Published On May 10, 2018
POLICY
Podcast: Mothers in Medicine
Women are significant contributors to research, but their careers are often cut short when they have children. What can be done to remedy this gender disparity?
Women have been instrumental in some of the most important discoveries in medicine. But many female researchers still face the “motherhood penalty” when they have children—an ebbing of opportunity and resources that often cause them to put their careers on hold.
Nancy Tarbell, a noted pediatric oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Dean for Academic and Clinical Affairs at Harvard Medical School, discusses the gender gap that persists in medicine and what institutions can do to support women and their work, especially during child-rearing years. “It’s quite a juggling act,” says Tarbell. “You’re trying to establish yourself as a physician and establish your academic career at the same time that you’re trying to balance your family and patients.”
Every year since 1997, MGH has presented a series of Claflin Distinguished Scholar awards designed to help women scientists with children advance to senior positions in academic medicine. In this episode, Daphne Holt, a neurobiologist and psychiatrist at MGH, and 2014 winner of the Claflin, explains how the award effectively served as a “second pair of hands,” allowing her to be a great mom and excel at her career. “The problem is that when you’re a parent, particularly when you’re a mother, you really have two jobs,” she says. “So something has to go.” But with the proper investments and accommodations, that doesn’t always have to be the case.
Listen here, or subscribe to the Proto podcast on iTunes and Stitcher.
Mothers in Medicine
Dispatches

What Makes a Kid Clumsy? More research into coordination disorders shows why some children are more prone to trip, fumble and spill the milk.

Eyes in the Sky Satellite data can be used to assess the health impact of dust storms and the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. Additional applications could be on the horizon.

Could This One Change Help Curb the Opioid Crisis? To prescribe an effective bridge to addiction treatment, emergency physicians must get special training and receive a waiver. Making that process easier—or eliminating the requirement altogether—could make a big impact.

One Thing Leads to the Next Robert Lefkowitz is best known for revealing the mechanism behind hundreds of drugs in use today. But he thinks of himself as a storyteller first and has a new book out to make his case.

Podcast: The Research Year That Was Medical research labs have faced a difficult stretch of closed buildings and competing priorities. Yet they have also produced milestone discoveries—and not only on COVID-19.

The Shape of Us Two milestone discoveries in protein modeling promise to change the fundamentals of drug discovery.

Universal Flu Vaccines Move Forward In the shadow of coronavirus vaccine development, another vaccine was making solid progress.

Top Stories 

The Neuroscience of Giving Up
Why do some people react poorly, even catastrophically, in emergency situations?