Aim high

Weill Cornell Medical College got a new dean this year. The old one was literally old, frail-looking, the only time I saw him was at commencement - and only briefly, since the graduate school has its own rather useless dean. The medical school and the entire medical center is trying to reinvent itself. They are in the process of constructing a brand new research building across the street from the hospitals; and Cornell University won the bid to build a new technology campus on Roosevelt Island, which is just halfway across the East River.

We were all rather excited when Laurie Glimcher's name was announced last fall. Not only because she's a scientist, an immunologist, a woman, but she is also what someone in our lab called our "Grand-PI". As in our PI - principal investigator, or The Boss - trained in her lab back in the day, so she's is our mentor's mentor (not that the word mentor could really apply to him literally, but let's look past that). Anyhow, there was even an article in the NY Times at the time of the announcement, probably because she also has strong ties to big pharma, namely, she is on the board of Bristol Meyers Squibb. She took her new position this Jan. 1st and already during the first week of the new year, she invited the entire Cornell community to listen to her talk about her vision for the next decade.

The lecture was scheduled in the biggest auditorium our school has and when we showed up 15 minutes before the start, it was not only completely full but people were standing everywhere in the aisles, so we went to an overflow room. Even though she looked small on the screen of this smaller auditorium, I could tell how confident she was talking to all these people. She talked about education, clinical care, research, the health care crisis, interdisciplinary medicine (that's the most commonly used expression these days in medicine), her family - husband, children, grandchildren, dogs - she quoted Steve Jobs about A-players, she talked about the history of medicine, women in medicine, her plans to make it easier for young mothers to develop their careers and many other topics. She was inspiring, seemed personable and above all, as well all know it, she is incredibly successful. It's still rare to see women like her in leadership roles: in a way, she symbolizes a lot of what young women like myself dream about, aim for. To have a successful career without having to give up other parts of a woman's life: having children, a family, dogs maybe :) It seems possible. And it was inspiring.

After her lecture, a bunch of girls from the lab chatted about it. We were all very impressed and inspired. We all said the same thing: it is possible! We also all liked her personal motto, from a Chinese proverb: Dig deep, aim high!