Thread by @DocElovitz

If I may, a thread🧵

I am not leaving academia. Not yet.

I posted this after a long, tearful discussion with a dear friend.
She is a dedicated doc and an amazing scientist. She played within the system- for years.

She climbed the ladder- successfully. 1/

https://twitter.com/docelovitz/status/1407436276517703689

While in different fields, we have grown up together in academia.

For years, we discussed not being enough, needing to do more, how to be more successful.

We were exhausted.

We felt like bad moms, bad docs, bad researchers.

We always put the blame on us.

2/

But, in recent years, using the lens (and unknown encouragement) of our young adult daughters & trainees, we began to question-everything.

Why must we always have to fight?

What was our value? What was our mission?

She wanted to do more. To improve & better the system. 3/

She spent years & so much effort trying to improve & change where she was—taking on more & more leadership roles.

It was a difficult realization when she acquiesced that her leadership did not really want change.

She decided other places would want change & she could do it. 4

Once she accepted that she would leave, it was easy to seek leadership positions. She was sought after. She investigated and interviewed.

She was excited about the opportunities and the possibilities.

I was excited for her too.

She could bring some much positive change. 5/

And then the call.

She was not going to do it. She was not going to climb the ladder.

She was done. She was out.

She told me things that she had sworn she would not share because who would believe her.

She told me of feeling betrayed & isolated.
No one really wanted change 6

She will do great things. I know that. She somewhat knows that. But, what she does know for certainty is that she can cannot do this.

She cannot continue to try and build a snow castle in 110 degree climate. No one wants it and it is way too fragile.

Her biggest concern?
7/

Trainees & her mentees. What would they think? She didn’t want them to be disillusioned. But, she could not longer accept the burden of mistruths

She has a great & exciting opportunity, outside of academia.

It reminds me that there is never just one path

But, damn 8/

She taught medicine and helped patients and moved science.

And she is leaving.

I sat a long time with this.

The context—the frustration, the anger, the devaluation, the betrayal—it mirrors conversations I am having almost daily with women all along the academic ladder. 9/

It is so common that many reading that tweet assumed it was me. I guess, why wouldn’t it be? If you are on #medtwitter and you see a senior female saying someone is done, with it happening almost daily, it is not really a leap to assume that I am joining the ranks. 10/

Let’s take that in.

The RANKS of women faculty leaving medicine and academia.

The RANKS. 11/

But I guess what is more surprising is for those that know me beyond just the twitter handle—Who know I was fellowship director for a decade, that my lab is very well funded, that I am beyond passionate about maternal health research.

It didn’t surprise any of them. 12/

Because not so deep down, most of us see what is happening. What has been happening for so long.

Women are not leaving academia because they do not have the skills to make it happen.

Women are not leaving academia because they do not have the grants

13/

Women are not leaving academia because they do not want to take care of patients

Women are not leaving academia because they cannot handle the work load

Women are not leaving academia because they do not have ideas of how to evoke transformative change. 14/

Women are leaving academia because that change is not really wanted.

Women are leaving academia because they are undervalued and because they are misused and abused

Women are leaving academia because they are finally understanding their worth.

15.