Tsion Firew, MD, MPH, is an emergency physician and assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University in New York and an advisor to the Ministry of Health for the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. In her role at the ministry, she supports and oversees several programs, including emergency care capacity building through training and research, emergency preparedness, and the response of Ethiopia’s Public Health Institute to mobilize resources with initiatives to assist in the attainment of Ethiopia’s Health Sector Transformation Plan. At the ministry, she established a women's leadership forum for all management and executive committee leaders. She created a platform for both men and women to engage in dialogues of tackling gender-based violence and implicit biases in the workplace. These dialogues have helped inform both men and women on how to build a gender-sensitive environment and how to foster women leadership within their institution.

Growing up in Ethiopia Dr. Tsion Firew didn’t always see the gender inequity that we have in the United States. In her FIX19 talk “Women Leaders in a Man’s House” she shares here experience with female leadership that inspired her to become a leader in medicine.