Demystifying Women’s Health
By Holly Prestidge, Photos by Tyler Trumbo
For too long, medical researchers were missing half of the equation when it came to unlocking new discoveries in medical research.
“Women were left out of clinical trials for many years, and what was learned from studies of men was presumed to carry over to women,” said Susan G. Kornstein, M.D., executive director of the VCU Institute for Women’s Health and MCV Foundation trustee. “We now know women can present with different symptoms, have a different course of illness and respond differently to treatments.”
Dr. Kornstein is a professor of psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology at the VCU School of Medicine who has been working to improve women’s health through research, education and direct patient care for more than 30 years. And she’s excited by the momentum building.
Women’s health is an interdisciplinary field that does not fall into any one department or school, and it requires collaboration among many different specialties and disciplines.
Susan G. Kornstein, M.D., executive director of the VCU Institute for Women’s Health and MCV Foundation trustee
This year, the VCU Institute for Women’s Health celebrates its silver anniversary, a milestone for a groundbreaking institute whose relevance is further magnified as historic national initiatives surrounding women’s health take shape.
Today the institute’s work involves more than 170 affiliate VCU faculty from 15 schools and colleges across the university who study not just conditions that disproportionately affect women — like depression, osteoporosis and breast cancer — but all medical issues and their biological, psychological and sociocultural effects. In the last three years, the institute helped bring more than $36 million in research funding to VCU.
Notably, in September, it was the only recipient nationally to receive a $2.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women’s Health and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for the creation of the VCU National Coordinating Center for Advancing Gender Inclusive Excellence. The center will set national standards and serve as a national hub for optimizing the success of gender equity programs and advancing women faculty in leadership roles across STEMM fields.
The institute’s leadership in multidisciplinary women’s health research is a welcome change for Dr. Kornstein, who recalls the relative dearth of information on women’s health she received in coursework and rotations as a medical student, when the discipline was seen as only encompassing obstetrics and gynecology.
To further address past shortcomings in the research, and to continue building on the tremendous international influence and momentum established here at the VCU Institute for Women’s Health, Dr. Kornstein is leading efforts to create an endowed professorship to support the institute. The professorship, to be held by the institute’s director, will help ensure women’s health research and care continue ascending in importance, attention, understanding and practice for generations to come. The professorship will ultimately be named to honor Dr. Kornstein.
“Women’s health is an interdisciplinary field that does not fall into any one department or school, and it requires collaboration among many different specialties and disciplines,” said Dr. Kornstein, who also serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Women’s Health.
Dr. Kornstein said she’s excited for the future of women’s health in light of recent national initiatives focusing on the field that have led to increased federal funding.
Last year, the White House announced an initiative focusing on women’s health research and, in February, announced $100 million in new funding. In March, President Joe Biden signed an executive order declaring support for the initiative, which prompted an additional pledge of $200 million from the NIH, in partnership with several other organizations, to close the gap in women’s health research.
The VCU Institute for Women’s Health is in a perfect position to support efforts such as this one. Just four years after its establishment, the institute was one of only 20 academic medical centers in the country to be designated as a National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It was approved by VCU as a university-level institute in 2021. Today, it serves as a model for pushing boundaries, thanks to a mission that fosters collaborative, multidisciplinary studies among junior and senior researchers, often from very different disciplines.
Already, these efforts have resulted in the institute receiving two national flagship awards in women’s health — the NIH’s Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) award and the ADVANCE-VCU award from the National Science Foundation. The BIRCWH program develops junior faculty as researchers in women’s health and sex differences under the mentorship of senior investigators with a focus on five topic areas: cancer, maternal-child health, obesity and cardiovascular health, mental health and addiction, and neuro-musculoskeletal health. The ADVANCE-VCU award focuses on increasing recruitment, retention and advancement of diverse women faculty in STEMM fields at VCU through structural and cultural change.
“Our institute has brought national and international prominence to VCU as a recognized leader in the field of women’s health because of our research and because of the tens of thousands of health care providers we’ve trained across the country,” Dr. Kornstein said. “We have so much momentum, and we have so many opportunities to grow and make an even greater difference in this rapidly growing field.”
If you would like to support VCU’s efforts to improve and enhance women’s health, please contact Samantha Charlet, assistant director of development at the MCV Foundation, at 804-628-2584 or samantha.charlet@vcuhealth.org.
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