A few days ago, someone shared a video with me of a young valedictorian named Kyle Martin standing at a graduation podium.
He had accomplished exactly what he set out to accomplish. He had worked relentlessly, earned extraordinary grades, and reached the top of his class. When he learned that he had been named valedictorian, the feeling was everything he imagined it would be.
For about fifteen seconds.
Then came the sixteenth second.
She would have replayed the conversation in her mind before it even happened, carefully choosing words that might help everyone understand why she made the decision she did. She wanted people to see what she saw. To know what she knew. To understand why this mattered so much to her. Not because she needed to be right. Because she wanted to be understood.
Known for bridging evidence-based healthcare with a deeply human approach to healing and well-being, Dr. Campbell has become a respected voice in leadership, authenticity, and transformational growth. Throughout her career, she has been guided by a belief that healing extends beyond the treatment of symptoms and includes honoring the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions of the human experience.
One of the things I’ve noticed about women is how often we explain ourselves. We explain why we can’t make it to dinner. We explain why we said no to another commitment. We explain why we’re changing careers, slowing down, starting over, setting a boundary, leaving a role, or choosing something different.
Sometimes we explain before anyone has even asked.
It’s almost as though we’ve been conditioned to believe that every meaningful change requires a well-prepared defense. We gather evidence. We build our case. We make sure everyone understands that our decision is reasonable, responsible, and justified. Only then do we allow ourselves to move forward.
There area few words women use more often, and reveal less through, than this one:
“Fine.”
How are you? Fine
How’s work? Fine
How are things at home? Fine
How are you holding up? Fine
It’s become such an automatic response that most of us don’t even think about it anymore. We say it in passing, with a smile, while juggling schedules, answering emails, managing responsibilities, and moving on to the next thing on the list.
One of the most confusing things about growth is that other people often become attached to versions of us that no longer exist. Not because they are trying to hold us back, and not because they want something bad for us. But because those versions worked.
You know…the dependable one, the strong one, the achiever, the caretaker, the woman who always said yes, the woman who could handle anything…and the woman everyone counted on.
For a long time, leadership was described as a climb.
You worked your way up. You proved yourself. You took on more responsibility, more visibility, more pressure…until eventually you reached a level that reflected everything you had built.
And for many women, that climb required more than just capability. It required persistence, resilience, and finding ways forward in environments that were not always designed with them in mind.
So when women reached leadership roles, the assumption was simple…they made it.
But something has been quietly changing. Reaching the top is no longer the only measure that matters.
She co-founded Imagine Pediatrics, a value-based care company that serves nearly 100,000 children on Medicaid. She sits on advisory boards for multiple early-stage digital health companies and partners with venture funds and operators on clinical strategy and physician-led innovation. She still works shifts in the pediatric ER — the source of every idea she builds […]
Some of it is exciting. Some of it is overwhelming. And some of it has created a familiar question for women leaders: Are we keeping up?
But that question may be too small.
Because the more interesting story is not whether women are behind in AI. It’s how many women are stepping into the part of the conversation that matters most…how AI is governed, trusted, adopted, and used responsibly.
For a long time, the conversation about women in leadership centered on presence…how many women are in the room, how many at the table and/or how many are in senior roles.
Progress was measured by visibility. By representation. By whether women were included in spaces where decisions were being made. And that work mattered…and it still does.
Her 10+ years clinical experience spans building a solo private practice de novo, working in private practice, for private equity and for a large managed care organization. She earned her medical degree from the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine and completed her ophthalmology residency at the Kresge Eye Institute. She finished a glaucoma fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Barte is a published author, national speaker and former key opinion leader. Outside of medicine, she enjoys Pilates, travel, delicious food (especially when paired with wine), karaoke, and weekly dance parties to the K pop demon hunters soundtrack with her daughter.
For a long time, ambition was easy to recognize.
It looked like upward movement. A bigger title. A larger team. More responsibility and the next step on the ladder.
If someone stepped back from that path, the assumption was often the same…they must not want it anymore.
But something is shifting. Not loudly and not in a way that makes headlines…but in the quiet decisions women leaders are making every day.
More women are not asking, “How do I move faster?” They’re asking, “Does this next step actually make sense for my life?” And that’s not a loss of ambition. That’s discernment.