Carol M. Rumack, MD, FACR – 1982 President of AAWR, 2001 Alice Ettinger Awardee, 2006 Marie Sklodowska Curie Awardee

Pioneer in pediatric brain ultrasound and textbook editor for a spectacular group of authors, Mentor and nominator of women in radiology to leadership roles, Mother, grandmother and wife, Education expert in GME

When I was growing up, my mother and dad were both doctors and I thought that was the most amazing life to be able to take care of sick people and help them get well.

It did not occur to me that women could not be doctors so at 10 years of age I decided I too would become a doctor. Getting into the University of Chicago for college and into the University of Wisconsin for medical school was competitive but went smoothly. I was one of 5 women in my medical school class of 105. I trained in pediatrics and found pediatric radiology fascinating. I convinced the chair of radiology to accept me into the University of Colorado radiology program as an extra resident as my husband was training in the outstanding pediatric program there that had attracted us both. It was only when I finished training that I realized that being a woman was a major deficit in my applications. One man who had recently moved from the faculty to private practice told me hat his practice did not interview women as “we are not going to hire women anyway” The chair told me that he had hired one woman faculty member and she had committed suicide so he did not want to hire any other women. He discouraged the chair of another hospital who went out on a limb and hired me as a contract faculty for one year. After that first year, I was hired to the regular faculty and have succeeded in being promoted to full professor with tenure during my career. I was of course attracted to the first informal meetings at RSNA and ARRS in 1980 and 1981 of women radiologists who were struggling with career and family issues that were not being addressed by the major radiology organizations.

When I informed my chair in 1981, that I was going to be the first president of the AAWR, he was very supportive of my involvement. When I tried to have a meeting of the women faculty and residents to encourage them to join the AAWR, they were afraid to be identified with a woman’s organization. One of my very senior woman mentors at that time, advised me that it would be unwise to form the AAWR as women’s organizations are seen as inferior. The AAWR steering committee deliberated for a full day at the Drake Hotel during RSNA and decided that we would risk forming this organization. The RSNA Board, executive director, and many chairmen were very supportive right from the very beginning. Those who come to mind were Dr. Ted Tristan, editor of Radiology, Dr. McCort, President of RSNA, Dr. Tom Harle, chair of the RSNA program committee and Dr. Hauser, chair of the Refresher course committee. Dr. Helen Redman, organizer of these first meetings became RSNA Program chair by Dr. Harle’s nomination.

These experiences have led me to understand that you need to search for mentors and advisors from every level of your life and career and to look beyond your own institution for inspiration.

What has changed about your career and self-perception since you were younger?

When I was younger, I was a fascinated by ultrasound and loved finding new things to study and publish. These issues still fascinate me but now I try to give great cases to the chief residents for teaching, to junior faculty to experience and save cases to illustrate these concepts in a textbook now in its 3 rd edition. I spend more time in administrative leadership roles advising others how to be successful. I try to be more self aware of my own strengths and weaknesses and find experts in leadership and mentoring to help me become better at my goals. At this point, I am thinking in terms of what legacy would I like to leave for women in medicine and radiology specifically.

If you could go back and speak to your younger self, what piece of wisdom would you share?

Be patient.
If you are trying to make political change, you will have to convince a lot of other people to agree with you and that takes time. Don’t try to introduce new ideas in a public forum but convince people in private of your ideas so that no one is seen as disagreeable in public and may be polarized against you.

Find the major goal and let the little losses not bother you.
Persistence is the key as if your idea is good it will eventually become clear to everyone particularly if you have data to back it up.

Don’t give up on your scientific ideas when they are rejected by journals.
As a pioneer, you are introducing ideas that are new and not readily accepted. Revise and send it back again to that journal, that organization or that grant.

What would be your most important advice to your junior colleague?

Find colleagues outside of your department that understand your university or private practice group. Talk to them about issues in general to see how they would handle your problems; don’t complain about personalities, focus on the issues and you will be more successful. Join the major radiology organizations – AAWR, ACR and RSNA - to find colleagues outside of your university or hospital that work in the same specialty, preferably in another state, that are not in competition with you for promotion. They are facing similar challenges but are more able to see your problems and help you with solutions that have worked for them.

What do you like most about your current life/career?

I love mentoring residents and faculty and seeing them grow and succeed.

What do you hate most about your current career but can laugh about anyway?

I don’t have enough hours in the day to do everything that fascinates me at home and at work. But I love to be busy so it does not worry me except that I know I need to take breaks such as hiking with my husband and relaxing with my children and grandchildren.

Who or what had the biggest influence on how you view yourself?

My mother and dad were always very positive about what I wanted to do. They encouraged me to be a doctor or anything else that I had a passion to do.

My husband has been my best friend and advisor since he is always ahead of me in my career. As a pediatrician and fellow scientist, he has always had great insight. Early on in my frustration he encouraged me to realize that if others see you as a woman as inferior that it only works if you accept their view of you. There were many other wonderful mentors in my life. My chair, Bill Hendee, encouraged me to be president of AAWR and introduced me to his book publisher who published my first book on brain ultrasound and
CT.

When did you realize you were interested in radiology career?

After my pediatric internship at the University of Maryland, I decided to finish my pediatric training when we were back in Denver, I elected to spend a year at Johns Hopkins with John Dorst, pediatric radiologist par excellence and his wonderful colleagues, Mike Weller and Dick Heller, pediatric radiologist at Vanderbilt now. They were so enthusiastic and enjoyed so much the pediatric patients and residents, loved to teach and convinced me that I too would love to do it. John Dorst and Victor McKusick had a weekly clinic for patients who were extremely short, called Dwarfing Syndromes at that time. They would discuss those patients with great respect, showed them xrays of their bones and explained their problems to the patients and students or residents. It was an honor to see John Dorst describing multiple syndromes and defining separate diseases – prior to most having a known gene focus. He was an honorary member of the Little People of America and that approach to medicine including the whole person’s disease and life has been an inspiration to me.

AAWR’s first executive committee: Carol Rumack - president, Linda Fahr - vice president and Kay Shaffer - secretary treasurer

“Spending time with family is one of the greatest pleasures in my life!”

Carol M. Rumack, MD, FACR is Professor of Radiology and Pediatrics, Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education, at the University of Colorado Health Science Center