Dear Doctor: Dara Kass
The emergency medicine doctor and founder of FemInEm, on what it’s like to create a platform and community for female doctors to share advice, ideas, and accomplishments.
Dr. Dara Kass is a passionate, innovative, and bold leader in the emergency medicine community. After spending several years working full time in emergency medicine, she decided to reframe her career. Bringing together her love for medicine and her passion for gender equality, she founded FemInEM, an online platform that fosters a community for women in medicine. Now, she spends the majority of time writing and speaking on gender equity and organizing FIX, the FemInEM Idea Exchange’s innovative conference for women in medicine. Read on to hear more about her inspiration, the rewards and challenges of running a business, and the one tip she believes is the key to success for women in healthcare.
“I was born into medicine. My mom was an emergency medicine nurse at Brookdale Hospital, in Brooklyn where I grew up. I remember her coming home and telling us stories about her job. As a nurse, she was the person who took care of everyone’s medical needs — she was like the medical liaison for our family. It was always something that attracted me. I got it, and I loved it. I was never going to be anything but a doctor.”
Training in Emergency Medicine
I went to undergrad at the University of Maryland, my first and only time living outside of NYC. However, I desperately missed New York, so I moved back to Brooklyn for medical school. I was in the ER from day one, volunteering and doing anything I could to be a part of the team. If you wanted to be an ER doctor, the place to go was Downstate Kings County hospital. It arguably had the best emergency medicine residency program in the country. I realized that I had what I needed in my own backyard — I stayed there for eight years.
When I graduated from residency, I wanted to work with a different patient population than they had at County. So I started at Staten Island University Hospital. I was there for five years until I realized that I wanted to work with medical students, so I moved over to NYU. I ran the medical school programs in the emergency department. I left there last year to move over to Columbia University. I am a part-time faculty member. I work in the ER one day a week, seeing patients, and I also do a lot of telemedicine, which I love.
Starting FemInEM
I’m a connector by nature. I’m the kind of person who has a lot of friends, the person everyone looks to for advice or a referral. I found in the first five to six years as a doctor, many people would ask me how I “did it” — fully realizing I wasn’t really doing anything special. I’d get questions about how I asked for maternity leave, how I balanced being a mother and having children, and how I got promoted. I realized that I was getting the same questions over and over again, and I figured other people were too. I knew there must be a better solution.
I wanted to create a way these people talk to each other because I knew that women were having similar problems and there were more answers than just mine; they just needed a place to find one another. So I started FemInEM in 2015. It’s an online platform for women in medicine to connect and tell their stories.
It began as a blog and it really took off. We had a backlog of articles to begin with, but we’ve had new content submissions every week for the last three years.
There is no limit to what women in medicine want to say about their journey.
By having this platform, we were able to start solving common problems.
One of the best examples, would be “manels,” (panels or conferences with only male speakers). I wanted to create a digital solution — so through FemInEM, we started the first ever speakers bureau for women in medicine. It’s a self-nomination process. I don’t vet the nominees I just make it so that they have the opportunity to be seen and heard. Conference organizers can go on the bureau and see who’s out there. The speakers can upload contact info, videos, and audio.
As a result, we’ve seen the abolishment of male-only panels in our field, because it is impossible to say you can’t find women to speak. A lot of the forward momentum from the bureau is from the community reminding organizers — the minute they announce a conference, — that the bureau exists. It also helps women who want to speak to share their profile so that others can take a look. Each one of these things grows out of a natural recognition of a problem.
The Impact of FemInEM
I get regular responses from women who live in remote places, who may not have a lot of women in their group, who are the breadwinners for their families, or who are on their first maternity leave. The support of FemInEM community allows them to find internal resilience they may not have had before. That’s what it’s about — disseminating energy into the world so that other people can stay at work; be better doctors; and feel connected, centered, anchored, inspired, and not alone.
The hardest part is justifying its value to the people who need to support it financially. I’ve spent a lot of time explaining to a group of mostly men, who are not doctors, but who have the means to support it through advertising, sponsorship, etc. that its value is in its community, not in its click rate.
A Tip to Survive Working in Medicine
I just gave a keynote lecture called “Building Your Raft of Bitches.” The metaphor originated with sea otters because they sleep all together holding hands in formations called rafts.
The message is that as a woman in medicine, you can’t you do it alone, because it’s not easy.
You need to reach out for help and you need to be connected to others. You also need to have more in your life than just medicine, because you’ll be a better doctor. You have to be honest with your people and you need to create a space to ebb and flow. At the end of the day, being a doctor is a long career. It’s not something you can burn out from; the training is too long and the knowledge is too deep, so build your raft of bitches so you don’t drown.
Lightning Round
Best advice I’ve ever received…I am what I am. — Gloria Gaynor.
I wish more people knew…it’s okay to be honest about what you need.
Ideal day off…lounging in bed with my kids, doing something funny that makes me laugh. Alone time with husband to actually have a conversation.
I feel looked after when…people see that I’m overwhelmed and I don’t have to tell them.
Favorites
Fall family activity: Apple picking and Halloween in Park Slope! It’s an amazing place to trick or treat.
Exercise: SoulCycle
You can learn more about Dr. Dara Kass and FemInEM here.
Know a great female doctor in NYC? We’d love to meet her, introduce us here!
