With the January 2023 seatings of Linda Moy, MD, and Geetika Khanna, MD, in the top editorial posts at, respectively, Radiology and Pediatric Radiology, women have reached a kind of critical mass in peer-reviewed radiology publishing.
That’s because Moy and Khanna represent the eighth and ninth women to take the helms at major journals, Elizabeth Kagan Arleo, MD, of Weill Cornell Medicine points out in a letter sent to JACR [1].
Kagan Arleo suggests the development is momentous in light of a memorable quote from the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
While serving with the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Bader Ginsburg was asked when there will be enough women on that august bench. “When there are nine,” she quipped.
Now that there are nine female editors-in-chief of radiology journals, women are “no longer the exception,” Kagan Arleo writes. “This is noteworthy.”
“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made,” Arleo writes, echoing Bader Ginsburg’s words. “It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.”
JACR published the note Jan. 14. It’s the third in a series. Preceding it were “Not Only Do Female Editors-in-Chief of Radiology Journals Exist, They Are Increasing in Number,” which JACR published in March 2021 [2], and “Do Not Let Your Field of View Be Too Narrow,” in April 2022 [3].
Here’s the current field of nine as named by Kagan Arleo in her series of letters to JACR:
- Elizabeth Kagan Arleo, MD, editor-in-chief, Clinical Imaging (as of June 2017)
- Ruth Carlos, MD, editor-in-chief, JACR (January 2019)
- Jennifer Harvey, MD, editor-in-chief, Journal of Breast Imaging (March 2019)
- Erin Schwartz, MD, editor-in-chief, Applied Radiology (July 2019)
- Christine “Cooky” Menias, MD, editor-in-chief, RadioGraphics (January 2021)
- Sue Yom, MD, editor-in-chief, International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics (January 2022)
- Elizabeth Krupinksi, PhD, editor-in-chief, Journal of Digital Imaging (December 2022)
- Geetika Khanna, MD, editor-in-chief, Pediatric Radiology (January 2023)
- Linda Moy, MD, editor, Radiology (January 2023)
Kagan Arleo wrote the first letter in her series to comment on a study JACR published in January 2019.
In that report [4], David Yousem, MD, MBA, and colleagues at Johns Hopkins Medicine documented a “large gap” between first and senior women authorship and female representation on editorial boards in nine influential radiology journals.
“This disparity has persisted over the 16 years of study, with no signs of the gap narrowing for most of the journals or the radiology group on the whole,” Yousem and co-authors wrote. “Given the implications of editorial board assignment and editorship of journals on academic advancement, we believe this inequality should be rectified in the coming decade.”
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.