Yolanda Mageto, MD, MPH, ATSF, recommended that women leaders in the medical field perform a “gut-check” on their priorities and goals. The thing about gut-checks, she added, is that if you don’t make time for them, they find a way to assert themselves.

Dr. Mageto, the featured speaker at Monday’s Women’s Forum during the ATS 2025 International Conference, shared valuable lessons she has accumulated throughout her esteemed career, along with her reflections on success, purpose, and the next generation of women leaders in medicine.

Checking Boxes

Dr. Mageto’s medical career can be succinctly described as an exemplary success. A nationally recognized expert in interstitial lung disease (ILD) and a renowned researcher in multiple, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis/ILD trials, Dr. Mageto is a professor of medicine and section lead in the Interstitial Lung Disease Center for Advanced Heart and Lung Disease at Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, and has served leadership positions among numerous professional groups and organizations.

But looking back at this illustrious career, Dr. Mageto says it could also be described as “checking every box as it came along.”

“Good medical school? Check. Residence I wanted? Check. Fellowship that I wanted? Check. Assistant professor? Check. Associate professor? Check. Full professor? Check,” she listed them all off, continuing with professional connections, publications, and more. “Check, check, check.”

Gradually, Dr. Mageto began to ask, “At the end of the day, what was I checking those boxes for?”

This question came to the forefront when her father suffered a stroke.

“The night of the stroke, when I went on call, I was just completing tasks and checking boxes in retrospect. I was just going through the next step,” Dr. Mageto said. “I didn’t stop along the way and do a gut-check, I just put my head down like we all do and just kept moving through the system.”

The Invisible Burdens

Progressing through the medical field is a particular challenge for women, Dr. Mageto noted, because there are so many “invisible burdens” for women.

Dr. Mageto listed several factors that she said she and many of the other women in the room were familiar with or had experienced: lifetime pay gaps, expectations for disproportionate household labor, expectations of being the default caregiver for other family members, higher rates of burnout and divorce, and more.

For women, focusing on the next step is a natural response and solution to overcome these inherent barriers.

However, checking the boxes does not ensure true success.

Dr. Mageto drew a distinction between checked boxes, which she said are “only achievements,” and success, which she defined as “that sensation of peace, of joy, of purpose” from completing work that aligns with your inner goals.

Gut-Checks and Pivots

Performing a gut-check does not necessarily mean that you will find yourself on the wrong path, Dr. Mageto stressed. This process, she said, allows one to reassess, adjust, or pivot to ensure that individuals are doing what aligns with their definition of success.

A gut-check also allows women leaders to assist other women amid the routine misogyny and disrespect that they endure.

“At the end of the day, we really need to think about self-care. That is part of leadership. If I am going to motivate and lead, then I need to take care of myself. If I’m depleted, then I can’t help you,” Dr. Mageto said.

Holding up a strip of paper, Dr. Mageto asked the audience to think of it as a ticker tape with 10 divisions, each one representing a decade of life. She pointed out that doctors and medical researchers lose three of these divisions to medical school and fellowships, and then perhaps another three divisions to old age.

“Whatever [time] you have left, live it to its fullest and stop letting all the outside stuff control it,” Dr. Mageto said. “Take a look and own it so that when you get to the end of that ticker tape, you can say: ‘You know what, I’m happy. I did what I wanted to do.’”

Other Recognitions 

In addition to Dr. Mageto’s speech, the Women’s Forum honored 16 women leaders of national thoracic organizations from across the globe who are attending the ATS 2025 International Conference.

The Women’s Forum also devoted time to presenting Loretta G. Que, MD, with the 2025 Elizabeth A. Rich, MD Award for outstanding contributions to the advancement of women in pulmonary medicine.

Presenting the award, ATS Membership Committee Chair Meshell Johnson, MD, noted that Dr. Que, the chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine at Duke University, is a renowned clinician and researcher, whose work focuses on studying the role of nitric oxide and related enzymes in the pathogenesis of lung disease. Dr. Johnson also recognized Dr. Que as a “dedicated mentor helping to shape the next generation of leaders in pulmonary medicine.”

Dr. Que echoed Dr. Mageto’s call for intentional leadership, adding that mentors are acutely needed now.

“We have such an important role in shaping the lives of young people, and I think that role is even more important today,” Dr. Que said. “I worry that we are going to lose a whole generation of scientists, so how we step forward now is critical.”

The ATS thanks United Therapeutics, Sanofi | Regeneron, and Genentech, Inc. for their generous support of the Women’s Forum.