So I'm going to try and do a very brief introduction, but so it says Stefania Bell is a licensed physical therapist, a board-certified orthopedic clinical specialist emeritus, and certified strength and conditioning specialist. She joined ESPN as a senior writer and injury analyst in 2008, and regularly appears on their NFL and fantasy football coverage. She previously taught at the Kaiser Permanente Orthopedic PT fellowship program, and she had teaching positions at the PT programs at Samuel Merritt College as well as the University of Kansas. And then next in line is Nancy, and Nancy has worked with the Carolina Panthers since 2005, and was named the lead internist in 2018. She took an unorthodox and non-sequential path here to her point in her career. She's unique in that I think she's the only triple board-certified physician. She's board-certified in internal medicine, nephrology, and primary care sports medicine. She was also the starting quarterback for four years on her collegiate and intramural football team, so she did play football. And she returned to do her fellowship at PGY 23, when she said, it's never too late and you're never too old to pursue new career opportunities. Jeannie Doprak is a board-certified primary care sports medicine physician at UPMC for nearly 20 years. She served as team physician for many high schools, D3 schools, University of Pittsburgh, as well as the Pittsburgh Steelers. She's also the primary care sports medicine fellowship director, and serves as the chair of the ACC Health and Safety Committee. And then finally, we have Julie, and we've all seen Julie in the media a lot recently, but Julie has finished her fifth season as the assistant athletic trainer and physical therapist for the Kansas City Chiefs. She previously was an athletic trainer at Princeton, Towson, Butler, and Florida International. She serves on multiple NFL task force committees, with the emphasis on player health and safety and mitigating injury risk. So those are my all-star lineup here. So let's start with a couple questions, and again, anyone can come up and ask questions as well. So I'm going to start with Julie. Julie, so my mom always told me that I'd have to work harder as a woman than as a man. Do you feel that you've had to prove yourself in your male-dominated workplace to get to where you are? So I think just to get to where any of us are, everybody had to work hard. So I think just working hard to begin with to get to the positions that we're at. I think when I first started, I was an undergrad. There was one full-time female athletic trainer in the NFL. So to me, when I first started, I didn't really know if that was going to be a realistic opportunity for myself. I never really thought about it. I know that sounds silly, as I just sat here and said I knew there was one. But I never went out saying I had to prove myself as a woman. It was just, I'm going to prove myself as an athletic trainer. So you have to prove yourself to your athletes, you have to prove yourself to your coaches, your administration. And again, it was never my thought process that I had to do it as a woman. It was just, I have to do this to be the best athletic trainer. So I think it's just that mindset that you need to have that you want to be the best athletic trainer or physical therapist or whatever you're trying to do, period. Not just as a woman. I think if you do that, you almost pigeonhole yourself instead of having the more open field of, like I said, just trying to be the best at what you're doing. And Stefania, you're in a different role. Do you, again, the same question to you, but have you felt that early on in your career, you were really the only woman, and now that's grown tremendously, and do you think you've had to work harder differently? It's funny, because I've really had two parts to my career, and first in orthopedic and sports medicine, and then, as everyone says, when I crossed over to the dark side and went to the media. I totally agree with Julie that it's really, I never felt like I intentionally was trying to work harder. I was just a hard worker and felt like if I did my best in whatever environment I was in, and most of my environments, despite PT being predominantly female, I wanted to go into the sports aspect of PT, and that was predominantly male. So that's just always been my work environment, and I worked in the training room at Princeton for four years before that, and back in those days, I worked football, and you weren't allowed to have women, they had their own training room. I'm that old, and yet, when it was football two days in the preseason, I was allowed in, and then once school began, I was no longer allowed in that training room. So I just felt like it was hard work would lead to success, and it wasn't really, I didn't separate it as being a woman, that I would have to work differently. However, when I got to the media part of my job, I definitely felt the perception by the audience of a woman talking about football, so it came back to me, even though it wasn't something that I was consciously thinking, well, I have to work harder. I definitely started to feel that there were a number of people who didn't think a woman should be talking about football, period, and that didn't matter whether I was talking about anything medical or if I had been an analyst of any other type, just talking about the sport, and so going into the sports media definitely enhanced my awareness of that, and I probably felt a little more pressure to try and be right all the time, to try and be perfect, accurate, credible, but it didn't influence how hard I worked. That was always there. Makes sense. I think, so we've all kind of said the same thing. We all just kind of put our heads down. We've worked hard, and we've never considered gender, really, as anything unique, so Nancy, you know, even though we don't really consider ourselves unique, do you think there are some necessary qualities to thrive in a male-dominated field, and what qualities have maybe helped you specifically? I think Lisa touched on those things. I mean, there's, and all of us have said there's no gender basis for competency, but I think there is that need to do that 5% more, that extra, and I think it's that humble confidence, no ego. I think that we probably all found that we subvert our ego. There's competitiveness there, but for me, it's that humble confidence, doing that extra bit, knowing that much and more, and then the ability to communicate, whether it's with your peers, whether it's with your patients, whether it's with your athletes, whether it's through the trans specialties, you know, so whether it's your physical therapist, your athletic trainer, your patient, your colleague, I think that ability to communicate. Jeannie, I always feel like I've had higher expectations of my students, my residents, medical students, and fellows. Do you feel the same way? You know, I don't know that I have higher expectations, but I have the same expectations, and then knowing that, you know, when I was a fellow, I had a one-year-old, and, you know, I meant that I was pulled in a lot of directions, and I still did the extra 5% we've all talked about, and went home at night and took care of my one-year-old, and had to make, you know, childcare arrangements, you know, if she was sick, and I don't know in the room, you know, the moms in the room, I mean, how many have made Valentine boxes, or were, you know, filling Easter baskets this time of year, perhaps, right? All the jobs outside of my job, I was also doing, and so I hold my students to the same expectation, which knowing what they're responsible for outside, it is higher, because they have a lot more to accomplish in their day. It's interesting that they have that saying, right? It's women are expected to work like they don't have children, and to have children like they don't work, or to raise children like they don't work. Julie, how about you? Do you have different expectations for your male and your female students? I always tell my students in general that from the get-go, so they know, I have very high expectations to begin with. I think as a student, you are the future, so you need to act and do things accordingly. That being said, I do think I have slightly different expectations. I don't know if it's necessarily higher, but I do think if you look at athletic training in general, there's over 50,000 athletic trainers in our national organization, so if an intern or somebody messes up, you have 50,000 other athletic trainers that are going to offset what you did or what happened. If you are a female who does something, there are 22 full-time female athletic trainers in the NFL. If you as an intern at that level does something, you've affected 22 people. It's a lot smaller group, and it's going to have a much greater impact, so you really need to think about the things that you're doing and how they affect not just you. You are not only representing yourself. You're representing whatever university you came from, multiple universities, your organization, as well as all females that came before you and those that will come after you. That is a huge responsibility, and I don't think a lot of the younger generation really thinks about that as much because they haven't had to necessarily see the work that went into women getting here. They just think they belong here, which is fantastic, but they need to remember how we got here. I've personally found that many male athletes have taken care of actually very positive views of women, even though you may hear different things. Many of them have been raised by strong female figures, their mothers, their grandmothers, and they often reach out to me with other issues that they want to talk about that maybe they wouldn't ask my male colleagues. Lisa, do you find that the athletes often seek you out as opposed to your male colleagues? Do they maybe see you as a mother figure even in your younger years? Grandmother now. It's interesting. I think that male athletes are different in different sports. I think in the NBA, you look at a lot of our athletes, and a lot of them came from homes where the matriarch of the family rules the roost, and so they naturally gravitate toward me for decision-making, whereas hockey, that's not usually the case. Most of our hockey players have come from two-parent families, and their moms might have taken them to hockey practice, and there's a big commitment there, but they might be less comfortable talking to me sometimes than they are talking to the guys. To me, I never take that personally one way or the other. I just accept that's an individual issue, an individual choice, because it's true with patients also. I have a lot of male patients who say they think women are better listeners, or they spend more time, and so they'd rather see a female physician. I have other male patients who have been like, yeah, when's the real doctor coming in? We're done with you. I think it's across the board. I think you have to be very sensitive to it, because everybody's got a unique story. Everybody's gotten to where they are through whatever their own story is, and I've had patients who were abused in their family life, in their personal life, and some of them don't want anybody to touch them, and so you just have to be really sensitive to the fact that everybody's got their own story, and you've got to try to do what you can to work with them to be sure they get good care. Stephania, what changes have you seen with regards to female representation in both the media and the medical side over the past 15 to 20 years since you started with ESPN? Wow. Just numbers, predominantly. Just to give you an idea, when I got to ESPN, there was Linda Cohen. I think Hannah Storm got there right around the time that I did. Obviously, Hannah was well-established. Linda was like, I just put her on the highest pedestal, because for so long she was like the solo figure at ESPN. Robin Roberts had been there but moved on, but there were so few of us that the makeup room was like a small closet, and there was nobody who did hair. You might not think that's a big deal, but when you're on national television, those people change your life before you walk on the set. Now, believe me, the men get the makeup too. It's not just the women, but the changes that were needed because of time difference requirements and sort of the, it was really Hannah who paved the way because she came from a national network and sort of demanded it. And here's Linda who had been at ESPN and really could not get consistent people in the hair and makeup department. So now there's a huge makeup facility in two or three different spots on campus to make it easier depending on which set you're going to. So things like that are the changes that I've most dramatically noticed and it has to do with the number of women who are included in our broadcasts, whether it's onsite at events, whether it's in studio, and then also behind the scenes. We have so many more women who are producers and directors. Shows that I've worked on, I have a woman who's director who one of our daily shows that we do in the fall and she won an Emmy for her directing ability. I mean, just top to bottom, we have more executives at ESPN. The longtime CFO for ESPN was a woman. She was the first female executive within ESPN. So throughout, whether it's in front of the camera, behind the camera, the numbers have just exploded, I think, in the time that I've been there. It's been like a privilege to watch that happen. So, and then I see it, if you're asking on the medical side, on the sports medical side, I mean, things that happened while I was at ESPN. Sue Falcone, who's a good friend of mine, was the first female head athletic trainer in one of the big four sports. And when she was hired by the Dodgers, it was a story that I broke and then I covered. So that was a cool event for me. But watching, as Robin became a head team physician for two of the big four in a major metropolitan area, and we did a story about that for ESPNW and it was featured and it became one of the top 10 ESPNW stories for that year. So I've seen, I've tried to promote seeing women advance in medicine. I've certainly talked, I talked with Julie a couple of years ago when we were at the Chiefs and some of the programs that have been put in place to actually try and encourage and draw women in so they are better represented within the medical staffs of the different sports. And I think it's like you said, Lisa, not, it can't just be women take care of female athletes and men take care of male athletes because for a long time it was men taking care of everyone. And so the idea that women should be relegated to women's sports is never something I've subscribed to. Like I said, when I started in the training room, my predominant coverage was football. When I was at KU, I worked with basketball. So I think it's really a matter of where you fit and where your skillset matches up best. But it's been a privilege for me to be able to see it as both somebody who has a medical background and now being on the media side and just see the numbers naturally rise up. I do wanna comment on what Julie said though about that perception of women have less room for error. So even though I think we all agree that we work just as hard as we would have worked doing anything, you realize that your stumbling room is much smaller. And when I got to ESPN, I talked about how my perception of what the audience's perception of a woman talking about anything related to sports would be. And I received a lot of that feedback, not solicited, but got plenty of it anyway. Still do thanks to social media, although it's changed a lot. But I always felt like I can't fail at this. I have to be really good. I have to make sure I'm really prepared. I have to be accurate and credible because I answer to two communities. One is the medical community. That matters to me. I'm a part of that group. If I say anything that is wrong, then I'm gonna hear about that and I'm not gonna be well-respected amongst that group of peers, which matters to me a great deal. But I also have to be able to translate that information to the broader audience for ESPN to make them wanna continue to have me there and to make the audience feel like the information is valuable. And if I'm wrong there, then I'll get sent out the door and they won't give another woman the chance to do the same thing. So I do think that the latitude for error is much smaller and that continues to be a problem. I see it all the time. When women stumble, the reaction, and not necessarily by peers. I do wanna make it clear. When I got to ESPN, I was very well-received and supported. The people who are the biggest names you've ever known from that place, like Chris Burma, I mean, they went out of their way to make me feel comfortable and welcome. So it was never a problem within the workplace there. It was always the perception of the audience, which influences, you know, that can influence ratings and that can result in changes. But I still see if a woman makes, stumbles on something on air or gives an incorrect stat or whatever it is, and it can be tiny and we all do it all the time, but the pushback, the blowback from social media is so much stronger than if it's a man that does the same thing. So I think just, you know, if men ask, how can they support women, it's just an understanding that those are some of the hidden challenges that you face and that there's that underlying anxiety of having to be perfect all the time. So people always ask me if I face any specific challenges as a woman in my field. And really the only thing, and I don't know if Jim Bradley's out there, but I think about, I was nine months pregnant with Jim on the sideline, and I remember Jim Bradley telling me to not get hit, please, like, whatever you do. So in the next week I had my baby, and then a couple of months later we're in the Super Bowl and I'm nursing my baby, so I had to pump breast milk in the middle of the locker room at Super Bowl. So those are some challenges, some interesting things that men have never faced. You know, everything else kind of, I think, were the same. But Lisa, are there any specific challenges that you can think of that you face that maybe your male colleagues didn't? I don't have a specific incident to say except for one. And I remember my first team physicians meeting in both the NFL and the NBA. In the NFL it was, I think, 2002, it might have been 2003, and I showed up, I was, you know, I dressed as nicely as I could, dressed as nicely as I could, and I showed up to the big ballroom where they were gonna have, you know, the social event, and there were so many men, and I walked in the door and one very kind older gentleman said to me, honey, the wives are meeting in Salon B. And sometimes, I got a habit sometimes of saying something before I think, and I just said, oh, thank you, but I don't have a wife. And I just walked into the room, and thank God I got, you know, grabbed by a couple of people who kind of knew who I was, and they bought me a drink and made me feel very welcome. My first meeting in the NBA Team Physicians Association was 20 years after that, maybe, no, not 20 years, 10 years after that, I guess, 10 years after that. And I walk into that meeting, and I'm the only woman in the room, and this room is only, you know, 75 people because it's the physicians and people from the NBA, and I'm the only woman in that room. And one of the team doctors, who's become a good friend of mine, who's quite senior to me, told the raunchiest, unfunniest joke he possibly could, and just sat there and watched me to see how I would react, and I just looked at him and I was like, is that the best you've got? And then I turned and started talking to somebody else, and it was sort of like, okay, I'm not gonna be offended by this, I'm not going to stomp out of the room, I'm not gonna fluff my hair, I'm not gonna start to cry, but I'm gonna call you a little bit on that behavior because it's really inappropriate and unprofessional. And he apologized to me about three or four years later, and he said, you know, I was mad when you came in because I didn't think you belonged there, and you're taking some guy's job. And he said, but now I've learned that there are gonna be girls taking our jobs, and so I just as well try to be your friend instead of your enemy. Good story. So some people think that we got here because we're lucky, you know, however, I think that this is actually a crossroads of opportunity and hard work and brought us to our point in our career. So Nancy, how can our colleagues help to enhance diversity in our profession, or does this happen naturally if we have good, talented people coming through? Does diversity just happen, or do we have to make it happen? I think both. I think we've heard about how the need to be competent and beyond, so I think to see the growth in the field, it's gonna take good candidates. But I think that we owe it to all of ourselves, whether we're women, whether we're men, whether we're in positions of a fellowship director or training program, society, media, that we need to promote that. We need to break down those barriers that are impeding that pipeline. 53% of our medical school classes are women. The growth will be in that area, and so I think that we need to do both. Good candidates, but also plant the seeds in fertile ground and see that growth. Julie, so to help maintain respect, I always tell my young female colleagues to avoid going out to bars and going out partying with the team or the players or the coaches, but however, they also can lose an opportunity to network outside of work when their male colleagues are doing it. So how can they also network? If they're not going out and partying with everyone and their male counterparts are, how can they network? What can they do? To socialize. And also, do you make the same recommendation I do? Yeah, I was gonna say, I do agree with you. I do think it is a little bit different for females, especially the younger females. I've been at the college setting, so when I have a young female athletic training student, they're essentially the same age as the athletes that they're taking care of, and even some of the interns we're getting now at the Chiefs, they're almost the same age as some of our younger guys. So to them, I have to impress upon them that if you go out with them and you do something or something happens or whatever happened, what they're talking about in the locker room is 10 times worse than what actually happened. So you need to make sure that you are aware of what is being said and what's going to happen after that. Your actions are much, much bigger, again, than just you. So you have to think about that and make sure that you act in a way that isn't going to translate into, now they're talking about you and what happened and not you as a professional, and you've lost that level playing ground that you had. So you don't want to do anything where it's going to have you take steps backwards. I do think we end up spending a lot of time with these guys as well as the coaches, so your relationships kind of happen organically. I do think you can go out in a social setting with them, but do it intelligently, do it smart. Make sure you're in a group. Don't be the last one there. Leave, if your boss is there, leave when your boss leaves. Just trying to make better decisions. We won the Super Bowl this year. We had a massive post-game party. Everybody's there. My head coach is there, my GM is there, the president of our organization is there. I was very cognizant of them being there. I'm not going to do anything that's going to put me in a position that makes them look at me differently because of that. So even just in that setting, just conducting yourself in a manner that is going to continue to demand respect because you've already established that with your body of work. Great answer. I think we have 20 seconds left, so we'll stay on time. Does anyone have any questions in the audience? I don't think so. Great, we'll end on time. Thank you.

panel discussion

women in sports medicine

women in sports media

challenges in male-dominated fields

diversity and equal opportunities

overcoming obstacles in careers