ABM Lifetime Member Profile: Nancy E. Wight, MD, IBCLC, FABM, FAAP

Nancy E. Wight, MD, IBCLC, FABM, FAAP, San Diego Neonatology, Inc. Medical Director, Sharp HealthCare Lactation Services

ABM: Why did you become a member of ABM?

Wight: I was inspired by the quality and vision of the founding members and wanted to be a part of the journey.

ABM: What is ABM‘s greatest strength?

Wight: It’s members and all they do in so many arenas (clinical care, research, teaching, mentoring, health planning, etc. etc.)!

ABM: What inspires you to promote, protect and support breastfeeding?

Wight:  As a physician, I care about the health of my community in all its forms and breastfeeding is the best health insurance.

ABM: What advice can you offer to physicians who are interested in learning more about breastfeeding?

Wight: Join ABM, join ILCA, join your local breastfeeding coalition. Find a breastfeeding ‘champion’ in your area to act as a mentor for you.

ABM: What accomplishment are you most proud of in your career?

Wight: I am most proud of the fact that as a clinician and educator I have influenced others to follow in my footsteps and EXCEED my accomplishments.

ABM: What is a current challenge for you in your work?

Wight: Keeping up with the incredible increase in human lactation research and literature over the last 10 years while working full-time (including nights!) as an ‘elder’ clinical neonatologist.

ABM: What can ABM offer physicians worldwide?

Wight: A vast wealth of peer knowledge and support.

Thank you, Dr. Wight.  We look forward to featuring additional Lifetime and Gold Members on the ABM Blog each week.

Join us at the 18th Annual International Meeting to be held November 21-24, 2013 in Philadelphia.

How a Surgeon Ended up in ABM

Surgeons are often Type A personalities, the ones who sit in the front of the class, who volunteer for everything, who stay scrubbed in the OR all day with appendicitis and do a post-op check before checking themselves into the emergency department (yes, that was me.) As such, surgeons are often dismissive of the subspecialty of breast surgery. The surgeries are not as complex as cardiac bypass surgery or Whipple procedures for pancreatic cancer. In fact, it’s often a rotation for interns. I was a Type A personality. I had no plans to do breast surgery.

Then, a funny thing happened. I had my first son during residency. Planned with military precision, of course, to coincide with the beginning of my designated research years, as I had hoped to squeeze another baby in there somewhere. After his birth, I would breastfeed, because that is what Type A mothers do these days. It’s the best! Of course, I would do the best! However, like many mothers out there, we had an incredibly rocky start. Poor latch with inadequate weight gain. Triple feeding with pumped milk. Cracked nipples leading to mastitis. As a Type A person, I threw myself into research in an effort to solve the problems. Not just the many, many baby books out there, but Medline searches on breastfeeding management. I learned more than I ever had in my surgery textbooks about the breast, the physiology of lactation that is both incredibly simple and enormously complex, and most importantly, miraculous. I was reminded constantly in my reading of the importance of preserving this ability to breastfeed my son, for his and my health, and how challenging that could be.