WIMS Seminar Examines How COVID-19 Has Affected Women In Medicine And Science – School of Medicine News

Wayne State University School of Medicine’s Women in Medicine and Science group will unveil how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected women in medicine and science on April 19.

The seminar, scheduled via Zoom from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM, will be attended by Shikha Jain, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Department of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Nicole Woitowich, Ph.D., a research fellow , include professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

Dr. Jain is the director of communications strategies in medicine and assistant director of oncology communications and digital innovation at the University of Illinois Cancer Center. The chief operating officer and co-founder of action, advocacy and empowerment organization IMPACT and founder and chair of the Women in Medicine Summit was named one of Medscape’s 25 Emerging Stars in Medicine in 2020 and one of Modern Healthcare’s 25 Emerging Leaders in 2019 and received the Rising Star Award at the LEAD Oncology Conference in 2019. She was selected as a ResearcHERS Ambassador by the American Cancer Society.

She was named director of the American Society for Clinical Oncology Women’s Networking Center Task Force in 2021, is a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, and has been appointed to the Illinois State Medical Society’s Council on Communications and Membership Advocacy and COVID19 role. Dr. Jain’s mentoring and sponsorship has resulted in numerous young women and men in medicine across the country. She works to promote the dissemination of evidence-based scientific information across a wide range of media, including social media, and has been recognized as a thought leader by Doximity and the OpEd project. She lectures nationwide on the importance of social media and communication strategies in healthcare. She is also the founder of the social media group Dual Physician Families.

Dr. Woitowich, Ph.D., is a research fellow at the Department of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. During his training as a biochemist, Dr. Woitowich on women’s health and the advancement of women in science and medicine. Her research explores the consideration of gender as a biological variable, the inclusion of women in the biomedical research workforce, and how these two components can be inextricably linked.

In addition to her scientific work, Dr. Woitowich created the landscape of the biomedical research company through her lobbying and public relations work. She has a longstanding interest in science policy and was awarded the Presidential Management Fellowship in 2016. She remains politically active and advocates women’s health research. In 2018, she helped draft a Congressional bill recognizing January 25 as Women’s Health Research Day. She chairs the Public Relations and Communications Committee for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Science.

For more information, please contact Kate Laimbeer at 313-577-0216 or [email protected].