How the LIMITLESS Initiative Supports Female Leaders in Dermatology

Melinda (Mindy) Haws, MD, immediate past president of The Aesthetic Society and a private practitioner in Nashville, Tennessee, shared insights into the LIMITLESS program, an initiative that supports women’s leadership in the medical field, particularly in dermatology and plastic surgery. The program, launched by Allergan Aesthetics in partnership with the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) and The Aesthetic Society in 2020, aims to amplify the voices of female leaders, tell their stories, and guide younger women on the path to leadership.

LIMITLESS was created with the goal of addressing the underrepresentation of women in medical leadership roles. While dermatology has made recent significant strides, with 52 to 61% of practicing dermatologists being women, plastic surgery lags behind, with only 20% of board-certified plastic surgeons being women. Despite this, the gender gap in plastic surgery residency programs has improved in recent years, with women now comprising 50% of residents. However, it will take over two decades for the gender balance to reach 50/50, as older male surgeons retire.

“There is a need for help with leadership,” Haws noted. “How do we become leaders? How do we be good leaders? And that's not just in societies...it's in our practices; it's in our lives.”

The program has evolved to feature various resources designed to empower women physicians, including new content for 2025. This encompasses video interviews with female plastic surgery presidents from various organizations and podcasts discussing the personal and professional challenges women face in the medical field. Haws shared her personal experience as a single mother and a woman in medicine, contributing to the series with a podcast on how diverse family structures can impact a physician’s career.

Additionally, the LIMITLESS initiative hosts in-person events, such as the Leadership Summit, which is held in conjunction with ASPS' Women Plastic Surgery meeting. These events, which have a limited number of attendees, allow women to engage one-on-one with established leaders in the field. Participants can learn from those who have carved out successful careers in various sectors, including private practice, academic medicine, and hospital administration.

“There's so many different paths open to us, but as women, since we're only 20% of the whole, there's not a whole lot of women ahead of us for us to look at and say, ‘Hm, I'm going to follow her path,’” Haws said.