Celebrating Women in Medicine Month: Nancy Dickey, MD ‘76
Being the first person to accomplish something is significant, because you came before all the others. People will always remember the first person to step foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, or the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane, Amelia Earhart. Sometimes however, a first is so monumental that it opens doors for a future population and possibly changes lives for the better.
This is the case for Nancy Dickey, MD, a member of the McGovern Medical School graduating class of 1976, who in 1998 became the first woman elected as the president of the American Medical Association (AMA). Dickey’s election helped crack the “glass ceiling” for women in health care and has led to a total of six women holding the position of president in just over two decades since, including the last three consecutively.
This is quite an accomplishment for a medical career, which almost never happened.
“A high school counselor had discouraged me from pursuing that career, saying I could certainly become a physician, but I would be unlikely to be able to be a physician and a wife and a mother,” Dickey said.
Luckily for Dickey, and the thousands of people she’s helped throughout her career, she began working at a local hospital while majoring in psychology and sociology at Stephen F. Austin State University. Nestled in the piney woods of East Texas, Dickey loved the environment and eventually applied to medical school after graduating in 1972. “I found a way to be married, and have a family, and practice medicine,” she said.
Following medical school, Dickey was drawn to a role in family medicine, where instead of selecting one narrow specialty, she would have the capacity to see something different in each successive exam room she entered.
“I found that I liked so many areas of medicine,” she said. “I love working with and coming to know my patients. I love babies and toddlers; I like delivering babies. I enjoy the wisdom of the elderly and the tools and outcomes of surgical interventions.”
One scenario that was always in the cards for Dickey and her husband, Frank, would be to leave urban areas and settle in a small town to raise their children, a choice she said was perfect for someone who wants a career in family medicine.
Though her role has changed significantly over the years, the move to a rural lifestyle has led to Dickey currently serving as the executive director for the A&M Rural and Community Health Institute in College Station, Texas, and as a professor in the Department of Primary Care Medicine. She’s also president emeritus of the Texas A&M Health Science Center.
Dickey describes herself as a “researcher and administrator, and a doctor that tries to keep up some clinical commitment.”
Twice a week she volunteers in a free clinic, seeing members of the uninsured population, many of whom suffer from a substantive load of chronic disease. Dickey uses this time to encourage students and residents in clinic with hands on learning opportunities, and also to collaborate with pharmacists, nurse practitioners, nurses, and support staff.
“It is an immense honor that people, who do not know you, trust you with their bodies, most intimate thoughts, and fears, and who expect you to do all you can to help them,” Dickey said. “As a small-town, primary care physician, I had the pleasure of caring for multiple generations of the same families over time, so they became friends as well as patients.”
During the rest of the week, Dickey heads a group of 39 health care professionals who provide contract services and education to rural communities and the health care facilities they serve. The Institute through grant funding works with hospitals across the nation to enhance their fiscal stability and share best practice.
Dickey also now uses her time to mentor young medical professionals, particularly women, to show them that they have the opportunity to make their own choices. She helps guide individuals looking to advance their career through promotion and appointment into leadership roles. She uses her path toward becoming the first woman president of the AMA to mentor and encourage women to embrace the fullness of what being a physician can offer – including some who may aspire to become women presidents of the AMA and beyond.
“I encourage women to look at opportunities in medicine beyond education and practice: leadership roles, opportunities in organizations of physicians, opportunities in their communities,” Dickey said. “We all need someone to encourage us, to offer a hand in times of challenge, and to help us reach a little higher than we might without the nudge. Anyone who is a ‘first’ will tell you they know others are watching and judging. Will the ‘first’ facilitate the next or be a barrier to the second or the third? I hope I was a facilitator.”
An election to the first woman president of the AMA would be an impressive bookend to any physician’s career, and while serving as a major accomplishment for Dickey, she’s extended her career well beyond just one accomplishment. In 2007, Dickey was elected to the Institute of Medicine, and earned a spot in the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame in 2010. She’s been awarded six honorary doctorate degrees in science and law, and was McGovern Medical School’s first recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Dickey also has served as an instrument of change to health care policy throughout the country. What started out as a hobby of debating in high school and college enabled her to learn how to evaluate policy and how it might be changed. Through involvement with organizations such as the AMA, the AAFP, the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, and the Texas Medical Association, Dickey said she realized that physician voices were necessary in order to impact policies that affected the profession and the patients they serve.
A major accomplishment for Dickey was the creation of the AMA’s Patient’s Bill of Rights, which recognizes rights of patients in order to form a collaborative effort between patients and physicians in a mutually respectful alliance. She also has been an advocate to encourage policy change that benefits rural health care policy, a demographic that makes up 20% of the population and 75% of the country’s geography, as well as making the choice of primary care an easier choice for medical students.
“Despite the best efforts of many organizations and individuals, we still do not have a perfect system,” Dickey said. “It is important that physicians continue to lend their voices to policy discussions. Policy impacts medical education, insurance coverage, payment mechanism and reform, access to care for our patients, and so on. Without physician voices, best policies are likely to be elusive.”
Though Dickey is slowly reducing her time commitment, she still plans to have a role in leadership projects while also continuing to work at the free clinic, which allows her to continue to serve the community, teach and mentor residents and students, and to continue to be an advocate for the future of health care.
Dickey noted that in her first days with the AMA, there were only two women delegates, and three alternate delegates involved in the meetings. Presently, the House of Delegates is approximately 50% female, and outside of medical organizations, she’s seen increases in the number of women being accepted into every specialty. Increasing numbers of women are present in senior leadership roles like deans and presidents.
“Half the U.S. population is female,” Dickey said. “Half the brainpower, and half the ideas, and so on. So, it means that our profession is finally tapping into the full potential of medicine. I hope it means that we have finally not just cracked, but forever broken the glass ceiling.”
Written by: Roman Petrowski, Office of Communications