Calling All Women CT Surgeons: Take Part in The New Yorker OR Cover Challenge

Nikki Stamp, practicing in Australia.

The Health, Medicine & the Body Issue of The New Yorker depicting four women surgeons at the operating table has inspired women surgeons around the world to recreate the cover and share their photos on Twitter. Using #ILookLikeASurgeon, surgeons from all specialties are showcasing their diverse surgical teams and the changing face of surgery. “The New Yorker cover allowed the world to see surgeons as women,” said Mara Antonoff, MD, a general thoracic surgeon. 

Dr. Antonoff and Nikki Stamp, MD, FRACS, in collaboration with CTSNet, invite all women cardiothoracic surgeons to send in pictures of themselves and colleagues recreating the cover. "This challenge is critically important to inspiring budding women surgeons of the future," said Dr. Antonoff. The photos will be made into a collage and shared on the official CTSNet Twitter page. The collage will also as be featured on CTSNet.org. “Drawing attention to our field with positive messages such as this is important to show the diverse role models we have in cardiothoracic surgery,” said Dr. Stamp, a cardiac surgeon.

For the #ILookLikeASurgeon The New Yorker OR cover challenge, CTSNet is seeeking to highlight both teams of women surgeons and those who are the single woman in their practice. “As demonstrated by Nikki’s re-creation of the cover, we are few in number, and it is hard for us to re-create the entire image, as many of us are lone women in our cardiothoracic practices. We rely on our collaborative support of one another, and for this reason, we seek to bring together the images of women in CT surgery to support this movement,” said Dr. Antonoff.

Erin Gillaspie and her OR team.

If you are interested in participating, send your photos directly to Emily Massa, CTSNet Web Content Editor. Please include the names and Twitter handles (if available) of all participants.

“Cardiothoracic surgery is one of the last frontiers for women. We comprise only 3.5% of board-certified cardiothoracic surgeons and only 5% of practicing cardiothoracic surgeons,” said Dr. Antonoff. “It's incredibly important that we show the world and young women interested in surgery that this rewarding specialty is an option for them.”