AHN’s chief medical officer talks breaking glass ceilings in medicine (Personalities of Pittsburgh)

Dr. Bethany Casagranda is chief medical officer of Allegheny Health Network and president of its Allegheny Clinic, AHN’s physician organization that’s one of the largest in the state. She’s the senior clinical leader of AHN’s medical staff of 2,500. Before she took over from Dr. Don Whiting, Casagranda had been chair of the health system’s imaging network and she’s a veteran musculoskeletal radiologist. She’s also previously held roles that include radiology residency program director, MSK fellowship director and MSK division director. As CMO, she’s playing a role in leading AHN’s clinical transformation, with integrated efforts between AHN and parent Highmark Health to execute the healthcare system’s “Living Health” clinical model.

You’ve broken a lot of glass ceilings, with your career in radiology, the other roles you’ve had and now as chief medical officer. Do you think that’s helped other women? I hope so. I haven’t reached the end of the journey where I’m not the first as of yet. I’m going to be thrilled one day when I take a job and I’m not the first woman who was in that space. When I came over to AHN in 2013, I was the first female division director of orthopedic imaging, and then the first female chair of radiology in Pittsburgh. And then a first president of the clinic and CMO role at AHN to be a female...There’s a bittersweetness to being the first because there’s a lot of pressure on people to be the first woman of something. But I also think that it’s like the necessary path to allowing the space to be more welcoming and for it to be more natural to see women in the space.

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