Making an IMPACT: 2024 Honorary Chair

Choosing an Honorary Chair each year is a heartfelt, thoughtful process led by the Scientific Program Committee Chair and ratified by the AAGL Board of Directors. This position of great honor recognizes individuals who have been significant contributors both in our field and within the AAGL. This year’s recipient, Dr. Linda D. Bradley, has bettered the lives of so many, both in MIGS and within her community. Her compassion, commitment to growth, perseverance in the face of challenge, and care for others is an inspiration.

Our SPC Chair, Dr. Ted L. Anderson, best summarizes this year’s selection process. He says, “In keeping with the theme of IMPACT, I wanted to choose someone whose career has really moved the needle on women’s health. Most importantly, I wanted to select someone who has been a mentor and supported the development of our younger members and who always adds a new dimension to every conversation with insightful and often provocative comments that expand our understanding and perspective. Who better embodies all these characteristics than Linda Bradley?

I have always considered Dr. Bradley to be one of my mentors. Any conversation with her is inspiring, any advice she offers is practical and insightful, and any presentation she delivers reflects the cutting edge of scientific, societal, and humanistic aspects of the topic she is addressing. Linda continues to guide AAGL as Medical Director with perspectives that are refreshing and insightful. She brings a moral compass that guides us toward excellence, compassion, and integrity and inspires us professionally and personally. AAGL is at a crossroads as we start down the path of subspecialty recognition. Who better to empower us to develop and use the knowledge, devices, tools, and techniques that improve the lives of the women we serve and motivate us to always be mindful and respectful of the “woman at the end of the speculum.” 

Dr. Bradley earned a bachelor’s degree in Biopsychology from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, before attending the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine where she received her Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree. During her senior year of residency, she was named Executive Chief Resident and completed her residency training at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. Always seeking to grow, she has completed an executive program in Practice Management from the Weatherhead School of Business, Case Western Reserve, and has completed the Leadership in Healthcare Academy at the Cleveland Clinic.

Linda Bradley is Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. She also established and maintains a robust collaborative practice with interventional radiologists for uterine artery embolization at the Cleveland Clinic. Her academic and clinical work includes Director of the Center for Menstrual Disorders, Fibroids and Hysteroscopic Services and she was recently appointed Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Cleveland Clinic Women’s Health Institute. Dr. Bradley is an internationally recognized gynecologic surgeon known for her expertise in diagnostic and operative hysteroscopy, hysteroscopic treatment of retained products of conception, hysteroscopic myomectomy, hysteroscopic polypectomy, evaluation, management and treatment of abnormal uterine bleeding in women with anemia of chronic disease, offers consultation and second opinions for alternatives to hysterectomy, hysteroscopic removal of retained foreign bodies (intrauterine devices), and long-term contraception (intrauterine devices and hormonal contraception). She is also a trailblazing proponent of patient-centered care. She has become a trusted expert and advisor, admired, and respected for her clinical teaching, passion for evaluating and treating women with abnormal uterine bleeding and anemia, surgical expertise in operative and diagnostic hysteroscopy, and compassionate bedside manner which is evidenced by her exceptional patient experience scores.

Dr. Bradley has published numerous medical education films and journal articles and has contributed to several highly influential textbooks such as Co-author of Hysteroscopy – Office Evaluation and Management of the Uterine Cavity, Associate Editor of Operative Techniques in Gynecologic Surgery, a foreword in Complications of Hysteroscopy Diagnosis and Management, and a chapter on “Hysteroscopic Myomectomy” in a recent edition of the “Bible of Gynecology,” TeLinde’s Operative Gynecology. In addition, she has published a cookbook in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic’s Celebrate Sisterhood collaborative titled Flavor Over Fat: Cooking Made Simple, and a book on women’s wellness titled Us! Our Life, Our Health, Our Legacy. She is also a frequently requested presenter at national and international meetings and has performed live telesurgical procedures at these events.

In addition to many national and international leadership positions, she has exemplified servant leadership at the Cleveland Clinic and in her community. For the past twenty-one years, Linda has been a dedicated leader in Cleveland’s multicultural community health and wellness programs. She is the founder of Cleveland Clinic’s Celebrate Sisterhood® where she annually hosts a multicultural health and wellness summit that has now educated more than 10,000 multicultural women since its inception. She is passionate about fitness, health, and wellness and inspires people to be “the best version of themselves.” Frequently, she hosts cooking classes in her home, religious communities, and local community centers. During COVID-19, she partnered with a local restaurant that provided weekly Zoom cooking classes to under-resourced elementary-age children. Dr. Bradley shared that she embraces “the modern Hippocratic Oath: I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. We are what we eat. Let food be thy medicine. Only by learning the fundamentals of cooking can individuals build upon and craft a personal plan for achieving lifelong health.” 

Linda has been recognized for her commitment to bettering the lives of others through numerous awards and accolades. At the Cleveland Clinic, she was named the Foundation Bruce Hubbard Stewart Fellow, which honors physicians with compassion and clinical care, the APGO award, which honors physicians for resident and fellow teaching, has frequently been nominated as “Faculty of the Year,” and has received the “Volunteer of the Year Award” by the Cleveland Clinic. Outside of the Cleveland Clinic, she has been recognized for “Top Doctors of America” and “Top Doctors in Cleveland” awards annually since 2002 and has been selected by Ladies Home Journal as one of the top six female physicians in the USA. Recently, she was honored by the YWCA as a “Woman of Vision” in Cleveland, Ohio.  She has also received the “Crain’s Health Care Heroes” award from Crain’s Cleveland Business and the “Woman of Distinction” award by the Girl Scouts. Her most coveted awards include winner of the “Golden Hysteroscope Award,” which she received twice, for the best hysteroscopy paper submitted to the AAGL Global Congress.

Dr. Bradley has made significant contributions to the AAGL including serving as President from 2010-2011 and on numerous committees including the Professional Education Committee, the Hysteroscopy Special Interest Group and the Grievance, Finance, FMIGS, EMIGS Steering, Nominations, and Scientific Program Committees. In 2019 she was appointed AAGL Medical Director. After her first term was completed, she was appointed to serve a second four-year term in 2024. As Medical Director she oversees our Special Interest Groups, shares her discerning perspectives with the AAGL Board of Directors, supports and guiding AAGL staff, blesses our membership through her insightful NewsScope articles, represents AAGL at numerous national and international meetings, and helps shape the future of our association.

As a little girl, Linda chose a doctor’s costume over other dress-up options and began to visualize herself helping patients like the doctors she witnessed treat her beloved uncle who went through extended hospital stays. Despite growing up in an era where options for women, and especially women of color, were limited, Linda knew from a young age that she wanted to be a doctor. Her family never dissuaded her from her dream and instead promised to work even harder to help her through college and med school if she worked hard to get herself there. Both of Linda’s parents were teachers. Her mother, now age 93, taught first graders for 50 years and her father, recently passed, was a health teacher, boys basketball coach, and junior high school principal. In Latin, the word doctor also means teacher… so in an uncanny way, Linda followed her parent’s footsteps to also become a teacher. Their unwavering belief in her gave her the strength to keep going through many challenges.

Even as a young person, Dr. Bradley was interested in learning many different methods of care and seriously considered enrolling in dental school. Fortunately for our community and all of Dr. Bradley’s patients, she followed through on her dream of becoming a physician. In high school she had assumed she would go into pediatrics mostly because she had not witnessed women in other specialties, but once in medical school she found an interest in surgery and the continuity of care for women that was available in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Therefore, she entered her career as an OB-GYN, yet all the while fulfilling her insatiable interest in innovation by learning all she could about developments in hysteroscopy. It was an era of constant developments in medicine which captivated Dr. Bradley’s interest.

As an OB-GYN she worked extremely hard. Eventually she found that the extensive hours and demand of physicians in those days was unsustainable, particularly for a working mother. Over time, the lack of sleep, excessive hours, and stress culminated in complete burnout. Linda took a family vacation in an attempt to recover only to end up with the same debilitating exhaustion one week later. She shared her mental health concerns with a colleague who affirmed her decision to change course in her career. She reflects that by being transparent about her struggles, she got the support that she needed and also found the courage to evolve and seek a role in her passion, hysteroscopy. These experiences gave her compassion and an awareness that this profession can be a heavy load and therefore we must care for and watch out for each other, we are each other’s keepers. She believes that by sharing our stories we open ourselves to find solutions and support each other. 

With her unbridled enthusiasm for hysteroscopy and the Cleveland Clinic open to new innovations, Dr. Bradley was invited to utilize what she had learned about hysteroscopy to trailblaze a path that became an important component of the Cleveland Clinic’s Minimally Invasive Surgery Department, offering hysteroscopy as well as vaginal hysterectomy, laparoscopic and robotic laparoscopic surgery. Never one to back down from new challenges and opportunities, she worked with great tenacity, reinventing herself and becoming the renowned expert that she is today. 

Linda is a devoted wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend. Forty-three years ago, she married her medical school sweetheart, Dr. Ronald Adams, who is an Internal Medicine physician at Cleveland Clinic. Together they have two adult children, Kathleen and Christopher, of whom she speaks with great affection. Kathleen is VP of Marketing Strategy with a large NYC company and owner of a thriving restaurant in New York, while Christiopher is a Sales Manager for an innovative hospitality and event planning company in New York. In addition to her family, Linda’s mentor, Dr. Gita Gidwani’s guidance and encouragement has been a consistent and valuable resource from early in her career to this day. As the first African American female staff at the Cleveland Clinic and the first to introduce hysteroscopy, there were those who did not believe in her. Then, and now as she faces new challenges, she leans on faith and reaches out to her family, her mentors, and her friends, for support, modeling for us how to navigate difficulty and good self-care. In addition, she has found biking, cooking, and reading to be great ways to rejuvenate and combat burn-out. As she says, self-care is not selfish.

Fueled by her experiences, Dr. Bradley has been an active member of the Cleveland Clinic’s Women’s Professional Staff Association since its inception, where she has advocated for the development, advancement, and well-being of the women doctors and researchers on Cleveland Clinic’s professional medical staff and has been a recognized and respected voice on this topic within the AAGL community. Recently she joined a Cleveland Clinic committee tasked with discovering novel methods to create a culture of well-being, efficiency of practice, and personal resilience to combat physician burnout and enable physicians to reclaim humanism in medicine.

Dr. Bradley’s insatiable scientific curiosity, joy of intellectual discovery, passion for community and connectiveness, and deep-rooted belief in evidence-based practice and patient-centric care is an inspiration to us all. She believes strongly that our patients are our partners, and their education is transformative. As she says, “Our patient is at the heart of it all, and she is relying on us.”

Like persistent water that eventually cuts through rock, her humble, genuine, tenacity has carved a path for others to follow that in hindsight reveals great strength and tremendous impact. With gratitude for her service to AAGL and to our profession, we look forward to honoring Dr. Bradley and hearing her address at the 2024 Global Congress in New Orleans, Louisiana this November.