Mentoring women to lead

“Charlotte was a trailblazer,” Wakelee said. “She brought together disciplines in ways that hadn’t been done before and helped reshape how clinical trials were designed.”

She added that what made her influence even more remarkable was that Jacobs achieved all of this while being a wife, mother, and even an actor in local theatre.

“She showed you can truly have it all, a meaningful career in academic medicine and a full personal life.”

Jacobs met regularly with Wakelee, helped her prioritize projects at different stages, and guided her early academic growth.

“That accountability really helps to move things forward in academics,” said Wakelee.

Today, Wakelee continues Jacobs’s legacy by mentoring the next generation of physician-scientists.

Intentionality

“There has to be intentionality,” Wakelee explained. “You can be a role model, but to be a mentor, you must be engaged and deliberate.”

"I have had many meaningful mentor-mentee relationships with both men and women," Wakelee said, underscoring that mentorship at its core is about people, not gender.

Wakelee mentors at multiple levels globally: the classic one-on-one mentorship, partial mentorship within a broader support team, and sponsorship, which involves advocating for others from a distance. Each plays a role, but the classic mentor-mentee bond is the most demanding and meaningful.

She stresses that classic mentorship takes time, focus, and patience, cultivated through years of close collaboration with a few mentees. It requires showing up, staying engaged, and helping someone find their way with intention.

Ripples

Mentorship, Wakelee says, is the key to scaling impact.

“As a clinician, I can only help so many patients. But if I train someone who then goes on to treat patients, mentor others, lead trials — that ripple effect is massive.”

Stanford Cancer Institute member Millie Das, MD, now chief of oncology at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, first met Wakelee during her residency. Drawn to the compassion and comfort Jacobs provided her patients, Das initially sought Jacobs’s mentorship. Jacobs connected Das with Wakelee, who was a junior faculty member at the time.

“Heather is extremely hardworking and taught me to say yes to opportunities,” Das shared. “I had my first child as a third-year fellow. Some might assume that having a baby would limit your opportunities, but Heather always advocated for women at all stages of life. She encouraged me and others, regardless of our personal circumstances, to take on challenges and continue advancing our careers.”

Wakelee said that Das, who has long focused on clinical care, is now stepping onto the national stage as an educator, delivering fabulous talks and deepening her role in clinical trials. She added that it's been exciting to watch Das's career evolve as she helps shape the future of oncology at the VA while mentoring the next generation of clinicians.

Das explains her own approach to mentoring: “I try to understand who they are as a whole person and what they hope to do. Then I help however I can, whether it’s connecting them to someone I know, inviting them to speak, or supporting them in getting to a conference.”

Another mentee, Jackie Aredo, MD, MS, now a Stanford oncology fellow, met Wakelee during her first year of medical school. Interested in lung cancer research, Aredo reached out, and Wakelee invited her to join her research group. Over time, she moved from listening in on meetings to leading studies, including the global clinical trial NEOLA, which evaluates a new treatment for inoperable lung cancer.

With Wakelee’s support, Aredo pitched the idea for NEOLA to an industry partner. Despite initial hesitation about a medical trainee in a leadership role, Wakelee’s backing helped secure Aredo’s seat at the table. Even during the rigors of residency and clinical fellowship, Wakelee helped her stay engaged and maintain momentum in her research.

 “She has this special gift of seeing the meaning beyond a person’s actions and guiding you toward your goals,” Aredo states.

“A lot of the interactions I saw with her patients were special, and I chose to mirror those in my own relationships with patients,” Aredo added.

Watching Aredo's career growth has been deeply rewarding for Wakelee.

"She's been involved in designing and writing trials and serves on a steering committee. She has presented at major national and international meetings. It's been amazing to see what she's been able to achieve," states Wakelee.

Spark joy

Wakelee values the power of work-life balance, creating space for family, friends, and moments of joy. She also believes good mentors must recognize when mentees are reaching their limit and remind them it’s okay to pause.

"It’s about making it okay to take those breaks and lead a healthy life," she explains.

Her advice? Think long-term and enjoy the journey.

“It’s a marathon,” she says. “You might sprint at the beginning to gain momentum, but you can’t keep that pace forever.”

Wakelee advises mentees to discover their own rhythm to better understand what drives them to keep moving forward.

“Figure out where your passions lie, what excites you,” she suggests. “Some things take time, but often, those are the things that make the biggest impact.”

Women mentoring women

When women mentor women, they create a foundation of support, visibility, and shared success. Grounded in lived experience, these relationships offer not just guidance, but perspective, and that matters.

“Just knowing that someone has your back, someone who understands why a particular path is challenging and why you made certain decisions, can be very supportive,” Aredo says.

For a host of social and cultural reasons, some women are more reluctant than men to tout their professional achievements. That's why Wakelee intentionally elevates the voices of those who might otherwise go unheard.

“For those who aren’t as comfortable with self-promotion, I try to advocate for them,” she explains. “When I serve on committees that decide who should be invited to speak or contribute to publications, I make a point of recommending women who might otherwise be overlooked.”

From 2021 to 2023, Wakelee served as president of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. Inspired by a proposal initially brought to her by a group of early-career women, Wakelee helped launch the Women in Thoracic Oncology Program to empower female researchers.

Redefining leadership

When Wakelee began medical school, classes were nearing a gender balance, but leadership roles were far from equal.

“You looked at division chiefs, department chairs, it wasn’t even close,” she recalled.

Today, more women are stepping into academic medicine and faculty positions, but representation at the top still lags.

“It’s improving,” Wakelee acknowledged, “but not where it should be based on the number of women in the field.”

Das points to pressure she’s felt to lead in ways that don’t always align with her leadership style or the realities of life at home.

“There’s this expectation that women should lead the way men have traditionally led,” she said. “But leadership can be more collaborative, empathetic, and respectful of people’s real-life constraints. Like not scheduling 7 a.m. meetings when people are getting their kids ready for school.”

As Stanford's first female division chief of oncology, Wakelee recognizes that change requires more than time — it takes intention. The path to more qualified women obtaining leadership positions requires reimagining what leadership has traditionally looked like.

“When we’re choosing leaders, we need to consider everyone who has the skillset, not just those who fit a stereotype,” Wakelee states.

Partnership

Aredo describes the mentor-mentee relationship as a partnership, emphasizing the importance of being “reliable, a team player, and putting in the effort to drive those opportunities to success.” She adds, “In the end, it becomes a partnership that will hopefully lead to the betterment of patient care.”

“There’s pride,” Wakelee said, reflecting on the career trajectories of her mentees. “You feel like you had something to do with it. But you also have to be humble as a mentor. It’s not about you. You just hand them a few tools and watch them grow.”

In a field often defined by individual achievement, women mentors are helping to pave the way for a new generation of female leaders in academic medicine.