Many scientists and clinicians take to mainstream and social media for public health engagement with their communities. Here are nine women who are trained in health or clinical sciences who have raised their voices in acts of public outreach to share important health information and ideas.
By: Melina Albanese, Claire Cook, and Kiera Murison
Melina Albanese is a PhD Candidate in Epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Claire Cook and Kiera Murison are PhD Students in Epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.
Many research scientists and clinicians take to mainstream media, social media, or other creative outlets to share public health and medical knowledge and ideas with the world. Their roles as science communicators play a big part in distributing knowledge generated through research to the public to support the fight against misinformation and disinformation. In addition, these women invoke thoughtful debate and challenge mainstream thinking and even medical conventions by sharing their evidence-informed opinions with the public. We’ve compiled a list of women in science and clinical practice who engage with the world through creative ways, including written or other popular media, to inspire, educate, and connect with today’s scientists and the public alike about important public health topics, issues, and ideas.
Jen Gunter MD, FRCS(C), FACOG, DABPM, ABPMR (pain): Dr. Jen Gunter is an OB/GYN and pain medicine physician. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Dr. Gunter has studied in both Canada and the United States throughout her career. Dr. Gunter has authored three books about women’s and reproductive health, including The Preemie Primer, The Vagina Bible, and The Menopause Manifesto. Her newest book Blood, which is about menstruation, will be released in January 2024. Dr. Gunter’s writing frequently appears in mainstream media outlets. For example, she has published an opinion piece on having a better menopause in the New York Times, debunked common sex myths in Cosmopolitan, and published an opinion article arguing that menopause is a transition to something new in The Globe and Mail. In 2021, Dr. Gunter started the podcast Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter with the TED Audio Collective. She even has a Vog named “Dr. Gunter” after her by Canadian shoe designer John Fluevog! Twitter: @DrJenGunter; Instagram:@drjengunter
Marci L. Bowers, MD: Dr. Marci Bowers is a pelvic and gynecologic surgeon. Dr. Bowers is the first woman worldwide with a personal transgender history to perform transgender surgery. Dr. Bowers has performed over 3,900 gender-affirming surgeries in her career. In addition to her clinical practice, Dr. Bowers has initiated trans-surgical education programs at several hospitals across the United States and Canada. Dr. Bowers has appeared on several television programs, including 60 Minutes Overtime and Oprah. Dr. Bowers also delivered a talk on identity at TEDxPaloAlto and, more recently, wrote an opinion piece about trans health care, which appeared in the New York Times. Twitter: @Bowers_MD; Instagram: @marcibowers76
Randi Hutter Epstein MD, MPH: Dr. Randi Hutter Epstein is a medical writer, Writer in Residence at Yale University’s medical school, English lecturer at Yale University, and adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Dr. Epstein’s educational background includes training in the history and sociology of science, public health, and medical school. Her writing focuses on topics at the intersection of medication and society. Randi has authored two books on the history of childbirth and hormones titled Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank and Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything. Dr. Epstein has also appeared on the podcast The Doctors to discuss health topics including perimenopause and testosterone. She has published articles in several newspapers, including an article about health behaviours and healthy livingin The Washington Post, an opinion piece advocating for people to stop calling women “hormonal” in The New York Times, and an article about the difficulty of producing COVID-19 tests in the BBC (which she co-wrote with professor of laboratory medicine Dr. Sheldon Campbell in the midst of the pandemic). Twitter: @randihepstein
Shikha Jain, MD, FACP: Dr. Shikha Jain is a medical oncologist, associate professor of medicine at the University of Illinois Cancer Center in Chicago, and an active advocate for women in medicine and science. In 2020, co-founded and is currently chief executive officer (CEO) of the Illinois Medical Professionals Action Collaborative Team (IMPACT). This nonprofit organization uses social and traditional media to deliver evidence-based information, connect organizations and individuals to health and advocacy resources, and advocate for science-based policy. For example, IMPACT has published several infographics on various important public health problems. Alongside the IMPACT team of health professionals, Dr. Jain has contributed to several articles that have appeared in traditional media sources (such as this letter advocating to keep interventions to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the Chicago Tribune). Throughout the pandemic, Dr. Jain has utilized her training to promote advocacy for public masking mandates and combat misinformation about the effectiveness of masking, such as in this Medium article. Dr. Jain has also spoken at TEDxRushU about gender equity. More recently, Dr. Jain co-published the book An Evolution of Empowerment: Voices of Women in Medicine and Their Allies, which is an anthology of pieces from women medical professionals calling for change and growth in addressing healthcare gender inequities.Dr. Jain recognizes the impact of physician outreach and actively advocates for responsible communication by the medical community about public health topics through social media, as she does in this article published on Wolters Kluwer. Twitter:@ShikhaJainMD; Instagram: @shikhajainmd
Jessica Malaty Rivera, MS: Jessica Malaty Rivera is an infectious disease epidemiologist and science communicator. Malaty Rivera is currently completing her DrPH at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is a research fellow Boston Children’s Hospital. In 2020, Malaty Rivera became Science Communication Lead for The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-led organization in partnership with TheAtlantic that collected and disseminated COVID-19 data throughout the pandemic. Malaty Rivera helped coordinate among scientists and the media to disseminate data and information to the public via media interviews, such as this one on NPR and this onein the Washington Post. Malaty Rivera has coauthored several case reports, published by The Rockefeller Foundation, which are written in the vernacular and intended to educate the public on COVID-19 such as this one about the process of the SARS-CoV-2 virus’ evolution observed throughout the course of the pandemic. Malaty Rivera additionally engages in public health communication through her role as expert contributor for NBC Bay Area and CNN. Additionally, she harnesses her social media platforms to communicate directly with the public to answer questions about COVID-19 prevention, vaccination, and to combat other pandemic-related mis and disinformation. Twitter:@jessicamalaty; Instagram: @jessicamalatyrivera
Eleanor J. Murray, ScD: Dr. Eleanor Murray is an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University. Dr. Murray uses mainstream and social media as public health communication tools. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she communicated with the public through opinion pieces in STAT News(such as this oneabout public health messaging) and The Washington Post (such as this one about lessons she learned from the COVID-19 pandemic). Dr. Murray has also been interviewed by several major news outlets, such as CNN and The New York Times. Dr. Murray is active on Twitter, where she provides evidence-based information in plain English about timely public health topics. Dr. Murray also co-hosts the American Journal of Epidemiology-sponsored podcast Casual Inference, where she and Lucy D’Agostino McGowan talk about all things epidemiology and data science. Twitter: @EpiElli
Laura Esserman, MD, MBA: Dr. Laura Esserman is a surgeon, breast cancer oncologist, and Director at the University of California San Franciso (UCSF) Breast Care Center. Dr. Esserman recently co-wrote and published an insightful opinion piece about rethinking cancer diagnosis in The New York Times. In addition to communicating with the public through her guest essay, Dr. Esserman engages with the public and other public health professionals about women’s and reproductive health care on Twitter. Her research—namely, the Women Informed to Screen Depending on Measures of Risk (WISDOM) study she leads—has been featured in several news stories, including this article in Time Magazine. Twitter: @DrLauraEsserman
Hilary Offman, BSc, MD: Dr. Hilary Offman is a practicing psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and lecturer at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Offman has communicated important messages about the medical care and treatment that overweight people receive from the medical system through articles published in mainstream media outlets, media interviews, and her social media. She has engaged in public outreach through a personal essay highlighting the issue of sizeism in medicine in the UofT Med Magazineand an opinion piece about discriminatory treatment that fat patients receive from their doctors or “fatphobia” in Chatelaine. She has also spoken out about fatphobia in the medical system in this articlepublished in the Toronto Star. Twitter:@Hilary_Offman
Paula Rochon, MD, MPH, FRCPC: Dr. Paula Rochon is a geriatrician and researcher at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto and a professor in the Department of Medicine and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. In 2021, Dr. Rochon founded the Women’s Age Labat Women’s College Hospital, which was recently featured in Forbes magazine. As Director of the Women’s Age Lab, Dr. Rochon and her team aim to support the healthy aging of women. This includes conducting research and engaging in advocacy to end discrimination based on sex and age in order to promote equity and inclusion so that the well-being and healthcare needs of older women are recognized and addressed. Dr. Rochon has advocated for healthy aging among older women as a contributor to the Toronto Star and brought attention to the delirium crisis that unfolded in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic in this opinion piece in The Globe and Mail. In 2020, Dr. Rochon published an opinion piece she co-wrote about the impact of COVID-19 on home health care with a list of recommendations for home care in The Conversation. Furthermore, she is the lead of Women’s Xchange, a knowledge translation and exchange center at Women’s College Hospital. Twitter: @RochonPaula
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