Healthcare workers that were once overworked are now exhausted and facing supply shortages. And COVID-19 which should never have been a political issue has become one. The healthcare system needs a reboot, says Dr. Shikha Jain a board-certified hematology and oncology physician and the founder and chair of the Women in Medicine Summit and that reboot needs to be intentional.

She has made it her mission to work toward closing the gender gap in healthcare and nurture voices and organizations that need amplifying. In this episode, Dr. Jain shines a light on the myriad ways equity in medicine needs to improve, offers best practices for staying healthy this summer, and shares non politicized resources for coping with COVID.

Dr. Shikha Jain is a board-certified hematology and oncology physician. She is an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She is Director of Communications Strategies in Medicine and the Associate Director of Oncology Communication and Digital Innovation. She is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of the COVID19 Action group IMPACT and the founder and chair of the Women in Medicine Summit. Dr. Jain was named one of Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Emerging Leaders in 2019, and was also awarded the Rising Star award by the LEAD Oncology Conference in 2019. She was selected as a ResearcHERS ambassador by the American Cancer Society, and was honored by 500 Women in Medicine.   She has been appointed to the 2020 American Society for Clinical Oncology Women’s Networking Center taskforce and appointed to the Council on Communications and Membership Advocacy for the Illinois State Medical Society. She is also the founder of the social media group Dual Physician Families.

Dr. Jain gave a TEDx talk in 2019 on the gender moonshot and the importance of gender parity in healthcare. She is a nationally renowned speaker and writes for several national publications including  Scientific American, The Hill, US News, Physician’s Weekly,  Doximity, KevinMD, and ASCO Connection. She was selected as a thought leader by Doximity and completed a year as a Doximity writing fellow. She is a current Public Voices fellow with the OpEd Project.