CUTTING THROUGH THE GENDER DIVIDE

PIONEERING CANCER SURGEON DR. SARAH PSUTKA’99 HAS OPENED UP HER FIELD FOR MORE WOMEN

BY CELIA HORE MILNE’78

The CV for Dr. Sarah PSUTKA’99 is 56 pages long, single-spaced. She is a leader, surgeon, caregiver, speaker, researcher, editor, athlete, crusader, trailblazer. Not to mention being a partner and a mom of two young kids. And one of the most collaborative people you’ll ever meet.

To say her credentials are impressive is an understatement. At Branksome, she was already emerging as a leader. Sarah was Head Girl in the Class of 1999, the fi rst to work with then incoming Principal and now good friend Karen Jurjevich. “Branksome gave me a lot of the tools to do what I do,” she says. “I learned a lot about work ethic, communication, balance and how to have a healthy amount of side hustle. I learned that if there isn’t necessarily a straight path, you forge one.”

After leaving Branksome, Sarah did her undergraduate degree at Harvard University, where she not only excelled academically, she was captain of the women’s rowing team in 1998–99, which won the NCAA Division I Rowing National Championship that year for the first and only time.

She then went on to obtain a medical degree at Harvard, a diploma in clinical effectiveness at Harvard’s School of Public Health, and a master’s in translational and clinical sciences at the Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education. She always knew she wanted to be a surgeon. Her father, Dr. David Psutka, is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Mississauga. “Surgery is the family biz,” she says. “I grew up washing the instruments in his practice in the summertime.”

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Unsure which subspecialty to follow, she sought to find a surgical field in which the operations were complex and challenging. During her clerkships in surgery at Harvard Medical School in Boston, she discovered urology. She did her residency in urology at the Massachusetts General Hospital (becoming chief resident) and a fellowship in urological oncology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “It’s an awesome field to work in,” she says. “I mostly do complex open oncologic surgery, but our speciality spans endoscopy, robotics and minimally invasive surgery. The technology is exciting and ever-expanding. We take care of incredible people and also manage challenging medical problems. Most importantly, I work as a part of an incredible team. It is the best of all worlds.”

Her fi rst job was hardly a typical entrylevel position. She was director of urologic oncology at Chicago’s John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, the massive public hospital and Level 1 trauma centre on which the medical drama ER is loosely based.

Sarah now lives in Seattle and is an associate professor of urology at the University of Washington and an urologic oncologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, as well as the fi rst female associate editor of the prestigious journal European Urology.

The core of her job is to operate on, and medically care for, patients with advanced bladder, kidney, testicular or prostate cancer. But she has turned it into far more than that, pushing hard to collaborate with others to conduct research that will improve cancer survivorship, limit toxicity of treatments, and maximize all aspects of patients’ mental and physical health before, during and after their cancer treatments.

“I think of myself as a hub that brings people from different areas together to solve problems,” she says. “For example, studying acupuncture to minimize cancer treatment side effects, bringing aspects of aging medicine into urologic oncology to better care for our aging patients, figuring out what successful outcomes look like for very frail patients, and helping patients achieve their version of the best possible outcome.”

As a side gig, she teaches physicians-intraining how to write better medical papers and design clinical studies so that they make a bigger impact and reach a larger audience.

Throughout this stellar upward trajectory, Sarah has had to be a pioneer. When she started in urologic oncology, only about three per cent of her colleagues were women. “I’ve never trained under a woman who does what I do,” she says. “There were a few incredible senior women in the field, but they didn’t work where I trained. The gender divide was fairly stark.” To change this, she worked with other women to co-found an organization called Women in Urologic Oncology, which is dedicated to increasing diversity, equity and opportunities for female mentorship. Sarah puts into action the Branksome slogan “Keep Well the Road” every day: “I talk about ‘widening the path’ so more people can walk on it. Life is a lot more fun, and we get more done, when we travel together.”

Now, female representation in the profession, and at conferences, is getting closer to 10 per cent, she says. “By bringing different perspectives into these meetings, you start getting a much richer discussion around surgical techniques and how to take care of our patients. We want to make urologic oncology as accessible and welcoming as possible.”

When not working, Sarah spends time with her partner, Dr. Will Lack, along with their six-year-old daughter and three-year-old son. Will is a specialist in orthopaedic trauma surgery, whom she met in medical school. “He is similarly driven and passionate about medical care, and he’s a really high-achieving researcher. Our dinner-time conversations are pretty nerdy,” she jokes.

She is an avid runner. The family also takes advantage of all the sports accessible to them in the Pacific Northwest. “You name it. In the mountains or in the ocean, we do it,” she says, her brown eyes shining.

Responding to the suggestion that her daughter, who is already playing hockey, will grow up to be a strong woman, Sarah replies: “She’s a tiny, wonderful empath, and a certifiable badass. Don’t put that in… Karen will have my head!”

A sense of humour certainly comes in handy when you have a schedule like Sarah’s. The week before her interview, she flew on Friday to London, England, gave a talk, and flew back to Seattle. On Tuesday, she flew to San Diego, gave a talk, and flew back the same night. Then she did surgery and worked all week. On Saturday evening, she gave an online talk to an audience in Hong Kong. On Sunday, she went to a pumpkin patch with the kids.

When asked how she balances work and family life, Sarah smiles. “Every single day feels like a full-on fi re drill, but I love it.” R