Advances in Radiation Oncology (Apr 2019)

#WomenWhoCurie: Leveraging Social Media to Promote Women in Radiation Oncology

  • Ashley A. Albert, MD,
  • Miriam A. Knoll, MD,
  • Kaleigh Doke, MD,
  • Adrianna Masters, MD, PhD,
  • Anna Lee, MD,
  • Laura Dover, MD, MSPH,
  • Courtney Hentz, MD,
  • Lindsay Puckett, MD,
  • Chelain R. Goodman, MD, PhD,
  • Virginia W. Osborn, MD,
  • Parul Barry, MD,
  • Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 2
pp. 218 – 225

Abstract

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The proportion of female trainees in radiation oncology has generally declined despite increasing numbers of female medical students; as a result, radiation oncology is among the bottom 5 specialties in terms of the percentage of female applicants. Recently, social media has been harnessed as a tool to bring recognition to underrepresented groups within medicine and other fields. Inspired by the wide-reaching social media campaign of #ILookLikeASurgeon to promote female physicians, members of the Society for Women in Radiation Oncology penned a new hashtag and launched the #WomenWhoCurie social media campaign on Marie Curie's birthday November 7th, as part of their strategy to raise public awareness. From November 6, 2018 until November 10, 2018, the #WomenWhoCurie hashtag delivered 1,135,000 impressions, including 408 photos from all over the world including United States, Spain, Canada, France, Australia, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Japan, the Netherlands, India, Ecuador, Panama, Brazil, and Nigeria. Alongside continued gender disparity research, social media should continue to be used as a tool to engage the community and spur conversations to formulate solutions for gender inequity.