Speaking & press.
Talks, interviews, and press coverage, plus bios and a press photo for event organizers, journalists, and producers.
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For talks, grand rounds, panels, interviews, and commentary, send a note through the contact form.
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Neurodiversity in Surgery: Supporting Surgeons, Strengthening Well-Being, and Optimizing Patient Outcomes
#ILookLikeASurgeon and Resilience
A pre-recorded talk for the symposium of the Future Surgeons Chapter (Capítulo de Futuros Cirujanos) of the Asociación Colombiana de Cirugía. With thanks to Dr. Luis Felipe Cabrera Vargas, MD, FACS, founder of the Future Surgeons Chapter.
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Social Media, Diversity, & the Future of Surgery
Presented at the “#MillennialSurgeons #thestruggleisreal” session of the SAGES 2019 Annual Meeting in Baltimore. Watch the recording in the SAGES Video Library.
How to Leverage Social Media to Disseminate Science, Promote Public Health, and Build Your Professional Network
Perspectives on Sexual Harassment in Surgeon Culture
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2012 Chancellor’s Award for the Advancement of Women
UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann presented the 2012 Chancellor’s Award for the Advancement of Women to Heather Logghe, then a fourth-year medical student, alongside two other members of the UCSF campus community.
Listen
#ILookLikeASurgeon with Drs. Logghe & Pitt
Two of the surgeons behind the movement — Dr. Logghe, who started #ILookLikeASurgeon, and Dr. Susan Pitt, who started the #NYerORCoverChallenge — talk about how it spread on Twitter and what it showed about being a woman in surgery.
#ILookLikeASurgeon: Thoughts on diversity in medicine from leading surgeons
Recorded while Dr. Logghe was a general surgery resident, this conversation brings surgical leaders together on women in surgery, the #ILookLikeASurgeon movement, and why diversity matters across medicine.
Read
Press & features
58% Of Women Surgeons Suffer Sexual Harassment: Why This May Hurt You Too
Covering a landmark study on sexual harassment in surgery presented at the Academic Surgical Congress, this piece features Dr. Logghe — founder of #ILookLikeASurgeon — on the patient safety implications of harassment and its role in driving women away from surgical careers.
“Beyond the physical and psychological toll of harassment on victims, the prevalence is concerning in light of patient safety. Victims of harassment naturally limit their interactions with persons who harass them. When this inhibits communication on patient care, patient safety is compromised.”
Surgeons Address Intimate Partner Violence Head-on
Following the death of transplant surgeon Sherilyn Gordon-Burroughs, MD, the surgical community convened at the ACS Clinical Congress to confront intimate partner violence — among patients and colleagues alike. Dr. Logghe is featured as an advocate who supported a colleague in leaving an abusive relationship, and is quoted on the responsibility of physicians to speak up.
“It is on us as physicians. We must speak up for our patients, for our colleagues and for our friends.”
Meet the female surgeons who are calling for a change in medical culture.
As the #ILookLikeASurgeon hashtag went viral, this piece traced the movement back to its founder — Dr. Heather Logghe — and explored why it struck such a nerve. Surgeons from around the world joined the conversation, sharing experiences of bias, invisibility, and the search for role models who looked like them. The piece captures a turning point: an online movement becoming a force for real cultural change in medicine.
“I’ve heard from many men who want the [medical] workplace culture to change…”
Female doctors saying “I look like a surgeon”
BBC Trending covered #ILookLikeASurgeon in its first week, as women surgeons around the world shared photos of themselves in scrubs to challenge assumptions about who a surgeon is.
Female surgeons raise awareness about women in medicine with #ILookLikeASurgeon
A TODAY Health feature on the #ILookLikeASurgeon movement as it went viral, covering how female surgeons used Twitter to spark a national conversation about representation and identity in medicine — and tracing it back to its founder, Dr. Heather Logghe.
“It is hard to find role models that remind you of yourself as a woman in surgery. It’s been so traditionally male and unfortunately so many of the female role models have had to conform to the male stereotypes to survive.”
Writing by Dr. Logghe
Profiles
Talks & panels
- August 5, 2019 University at Buffalo Department of Surgery Learn to Leverage Social Media for Career Growth Call-in session.
- April 29, 2019 SSAT Resident & Fellow Education Committee webinar Branding and Social Media Career Building for Residents, Fellows, and Young Faculty, Part II. Slides (PDF)
- April 26, 2019 500 Women in Medicine Let’s Get Real About Burnout Twitter panel, #MedBurnout.
- March 8, 2018 Thomas Jefferson University · Surgery Grand Rounds How to Leverage Social Media to Disseminate Science, Promote Public Health, and Build Your Professional Network Department of Surgery Presentations and Grand Rounds.
Press kit
Surgeon exploring the intersection of care, communication, and culture.
Background
Dr. Heather Logghe is a general surgeon and palliative care physician. Her work focuses on the intersection of surgical excellence, communication, and the human experience of care.
She writes and speaks about:
- The culture of surgery and physician well-being
- Communication in high-stakes clinical environments
- Perioperative pain and the patient experience
- Integrating palliative principles into surgical care
- Identity, belonging, and representation in medicine
- Equity, diversity, and the evolving surgical workforce
Her perspective is grounded in frontline clinical experience and a commitment to advancing care that is precise, humane, and aligned with what matters to patients and families.
Areas of Expertise
Available for commentary, interviews, and written contributions on:
Surgical Care & Patient Experience
- What patients and families should understand about surgery
- Postoperative pain: expectations, gaps, and opportunities for improvement
- Decision-making in serious illness
Physician Culture, Workforce & Training
- Burnout, retention, and the future of the surgical workforce
- Diversity in surgery, including the experiences of women and underrepresented groups
- How training environments shape clinician development and patient outcomes
- Psychological safety and team performance in healthcare
Sexual Harassment in Surgery & Medicine
- Prevalence: studies show more than half of women in surgical training report experiencing sexual harassment — rates that have persisted for decades
- Impact on training: harassment disrupts the learning environment, undermines mentorship relationships, and impairs the professional development of those targeted
- Attrition: harassment is a significant driver of women leaving surgical careers, contributing to workforce gaps that are difficult to reverse
- Patient safety implications: when harassment limits communication between team members, patient care is directly compromised
- Systems-level response: why individual reporting mechanisms fall short, and what structural change actually requires
Communication, Ethics & Humanism
- Navigating uncertainty and high-stakes conversations
- Aligning treatment with patient values
- Ethical complexity in modern surgical care
- Humanism as a driver of better outcomes
Health Equity & Systems
- Health disparities and their impact on surgical outcomes
- Intimate partner violence — identification, clinical response, and systems-level gaps
- Structural factors influencing access, trust, and care delivery
Health Systems & Innovation
- Workflow, cognitive load, and reducing error
- Systems that support both clinicians and patients
- Where medicine succeeds — and where it falls short
Weight Bias & Obesity in Medicine
- Co-founder of #obsm, a Twitter-based community discussion on obesity and social media in medicine
- Weight stigma in clinical settings — how bias shapes care and outcomes
- The surgeon’s role in addressing obesity without judgment
- What patients with obesity experience navigating the healthcare system
Bios
For use in event programs, media kits, and press materials.
Short Bio — 50–75 words
Dr. Heather Logghe is a general surgeon and palliative care physician. She focuses on the intersection of surgical care, communication, and the human experience of medicine. Her work explores perioperative pain, physician culture, and health systems, with an emphasis on improving both patient outcomes and the sustainability of the surgical workforce.
Medium Bio — 100–150 words
Dr. Heather Logghe is a general surgeon and palliative care physician. She writes and speaks on surgical care, communication, and the culture of medicine, with a focus on perioperative pain, patient experience, and physician well-being. Her work also addresses diversity in the surgical workforce, sexual harassment in medicine, and the impact of health systems on both clinicians and patients.
She is the founder of #ILookLikeASurgeon, a global movement highlighting identity and representation in surgery. Her writing has been featured in outlets including the AMA Journal of Ethics and KevinMD. She brings a clinically grounded, systems-aware perspective to conversations about how medicine works — and how it can improve.
Long Bio — about 175 words
Dr. Heather Logghe is a general surgeon and palliative care physician. Her work sits at the intersection of surgical care, communication, and the human experience of medicine. She focuses on perioperative pain, decision-making in serious illness, and how communication shapes outcomes for patients and families.
In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Logghe examines the culture of medicine, including physician burnout, workforce sustainability, and the environments in which surgeons are trained. Her work also addresses diversity in surgery, the experiences of women and underrepresented groups in medicine, sexual harassment in healthcare, and health disparities that influence surgical outcomes.
She is the founder of #ILookLikeASurgeon, a global movement that has helped reshape conversations around identity and representation in medicine. Her writing has appeared in the AMA Journal of Ethics, KevinMD, and other platforms focused on advancing culture change in healthcare.
Dr. Logghe brings a clear, thoughtful, and clinically grounded voice to complex topics — offering insight into both how care is delivered and how it can evolve to better serve patients and the clinicians who care for them.
Speaking & press inquiries
For talks, interviews, or commentary, please send a request or schedule a call.