Women Faculty Forum – Women in Medicine & Sciences Feature: Susanna Spence, MD
Each month, the Women Faculty Forum presents its Women in Medicine and Sciences Feature, highlighting the women faculty at McGovern Medical School who are leaders in medicine, research, and education.
This month’s feature is Susanna Spence, MD, professor in the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging.
What is your background? When did you join UTHealth Houston?
I was born in England, but being an oil brat, ended up moving quite a bit. 3 years in Egypt, five in Indonesia, followed by the parents moving to California while my sister and I returned to England for boarding school.
I came to the United States for college at Duke, by which point the family had moved to the great state of Texas. I went to medical school at UTHealth Science Center – San Antonio, did my residency in diagnostic radiology and fellowship in emergency, trauma, and orthopedic imaging at UTHealth Houston, after which I stayed on as faculty, starting in 2011.
What inspired you to pursue a career in science and medicine?
Science was always the most fun in school. From fourth grade science projects making ketchup volcanoes “erupt” with baking soda and vinegar, to high school experiments where I tried to find a new antibiotic by testing all of the plant extracts in the school greenhouse (it was geraniums, those were clearly the answer), the sciences were always what I enjoyed most.
By the end of high school, I knew I wanted to pursue biology, which was my major in college. At that time, I volunteered at the hospital children’s ward on weekends, which was my first exposure to the joys of medicine. I’ve never looked back.
What are your current clinical and/or research interests?
I enjoy many different things, and UTHealth Houston has certainly been a great place to try a bit of everything. Early in my career I became fascinated with QI work, which led to a need for a greater understanding of workflow, human factors engineering, and IT and data management. I’m a bit horrified to admit that there is little I enjoy more than vast spreadsheets of data. Amongst other things, this is how we find out what’s going on in our day to day lives, where the inefficiencies are that drag down our day, and (hopefully) how to fix them.
I have the greatest respect for my research colleagues who prepare over many years to change the world, but have to admit that there’s just something so very satisfying about QI, as it generally allows you to have a rapid or immediate impact. Plus, the cyclical improvement model of QI always means you are getting to try out something new or untested.
Who are your role models?
Wow, I think this is the hardest question to answer, as I don’t have nearly enough space to list all the people I would like to. I’ve had so many fabulous role models over the years, but for science and medicine a few stand out. My fabulous biology teacher in high school Dr. Penny, and my crazy physics teacher Mr. Fitzpatrick, who would run down the center aisle of the classroom waving his arms and yelling mnemonics (not to self: some teaching methods are more memorable than others).
But more specifically here at UTHealth Houston, I came as a resident into a radiology program where both the program director and chair were women (and still are), despite the field remaining a male-dominated one. This has been a supportive environment from the beginning. While here, I have been able to learn from so many fabulous women, but I would like to specifically call out inspiration from Carmel Dyer, who showed me the incredibly value of small gestures of support, Bela Patel, who really knows how to put QI front and center on the map, Emma Ferguson and Karla Sepulveda for showing me the tremendous value-add of getting involved in our state specialty societies, and Susan John for showing me what steadfast support, clear priorities, and leadership can really do in this ever-changing and uncertain world of medicine.
What do you enjoy most about working at UTHealth Houston?
UTHealth Houston provides an amazing variety of opportunities, and the breadth of those opportunities just continues to expand. Updates to the promotions criteria over the last few years have been tremendous boon, allowing us to pursue our incredibly diverse and varied interests, contribute in new and exciting ways, with the University recognizing those new contributions as a path to promotion and advancement. Overall, the people, the interdisciplinary collaboration, and the support from the institutions and our colleagues just makes this an incredible place to work.
How do you think UTHealth Houston can further support female faculty?
In 2017, I was able to attend the University of Texas System Women’s Leaders Network Workshop with Carmel Dyer and my chair Susan John. IT really was a fabulous experience. One of the pieces of advice I took to heart from that course was to “never underestimate the strength of weak connections,” a reference to Mark Granovetter’s paper on the Strength of Weak Ties. I’ve certainly heard from junior faculty members over the years that they didn’t know very many people outside of their department or institution, or that those whom they had met, they only ha met briefly once or twice. So how could they get that speaking engagement, get on that committee, get that letter of reference for promotion given this realty? How eye opening, and what a relief it was, to realize how very little it matters whether you know someone “well.” We are truly a community, and so often the person you reach out to remembers exactly what it was like being where you are and will either jump in to help or give fabulous advice on what to do next.
This kind of networking and opportunity was given by the Women Faculty Forum. The combination of learning and informal networking is a win all around. We’re all under increasing time constraints and pressures, so having those moments to sit and reconnect can only become more important as we go forward.