Dr. Sharona Ross shares how innovation, mentorship and a renewed focus on balance can help shape a more inclusive and sustainable future for surgeons.
Video Highlights
Dr. Ross describes her practice, which is focused on foregut and HPB surgery, robotics and minimally invasive techniques, with innovation aimed at improving patient outcomes.
Why Dr. Ross organized an initial gathering in Tampa Bay that led to the first International Women in Surgery Career Symposium.
Dr. Ross stresses that women in surgery have merit but are not always seen, and she emphasizes the responsibility of women in leadership to “send the elevator down” for others.
Following a serious bicycle accident and brain injury, Dr. Ross describes rethinking a work-centered life, reducing clinic volume, scheduling personal priorities and recognizing that the next generation’s emphasis on balance may help make surgery more sustainable.
In this episode of Women in Surgery, Dr. Shlomit Schaal, Chief Physician Executive at Houston Methodist, welcomes Dr. Sharona Ross, a foregut and HPB surgeon at AdventHealth Tampa who describes converting her practice to robotics and minimally invasive surgery while also making mentorship of the next generation of women in surgery a defining professional priority.
Throughout the conversation, Dr. Ross traces her path from early mentorship in Israel to advanced surgical training in the U.S., including HPB, advanced GI and endoscopy fellowships shaped by an interest in minimizing patient trauma. The conversation also highlights structural challenges in surgical culture, including gender visibility, mentorship gaps and the need to support women from STEM and pre-med stages through residency, fellowship and attending practice.
Of note, Dr. Ross discusses her work building community for women in surgery. In 2009, while participating in a summer research program in Tampa, she encountered pre-med and medical students who were interested in medicine but reluctant to choose surgery because they perceived it as incompatible with family and a “normal life.” Her response was to invite students, residents, fellows and attending surgeons to gather, ask questions and see examples of women succeeding in the field. That local gathering became the International Women in Surgery Career Symposium in 2010.
The conversation also addresses physician well-being with unusual candor. Dr. Ross describes a serious bicycle accident, during which she fractured her skull, face and clavicle, experienced temporary right-leg paralysis and later recognized she had a diffuse axonal injury. She describes the event as a wake-up call after years of prioritizing work above her own health, noting that she had not placed herself on the schedule for preventive care. Her reflection leads to actionable insights for other clinicians: what matters must be scheduled. Dr. Ross explains that she is learning to create balance and recognizing that family, personal priorities and recovery do not happen reliably unless they are intentionally protected. She connects this shift to generational change in medicine, suggesting that younger trainees’ expectations around quality of life and balance may help surgery adapt in ways that are necessary for long-term workforce sustainability.