2. Who are AFMW?
• The Australian Federation of Medical Women
(AFMW) was formed in 1927 to promote and
develop the formal practice of medicine among
women and to improve the health and welfare of
all persons but especially women and children
in the Australian community.
• It is the only national body that exclusively
represents the views of female medical
practitioners, and is a non-profit, non-
government organisation with affiliated state
member bodies.
3. Acknowledgements
• The Bridging Leadership Barriers project was made
possible by a $89,000 grant from the Australian
Government Office For Women’s 2007-08 Leadership
and Development Program Grants.
• This project was designed and managed
by Dr Jillian Tomlinson, a Melbourne
surgical trainee who received the
Australian Virtual Centre for Leadership
for Women’s 2009 National Leadership
Achievement for Women Award for her
work.
4. Paradox of Medical Privilege
• It’s a dilemma
• Medical women can be considered
amongst the most privileged educated
women in the world but sexism is as
pervasive still in medicine as it is all areas
of women’s lives
• It also affects women doctors occupational
health
• It affects patient care
5. Paradox of Medical Privilege
• Double disappointment when medical women behave
more like their male colleagues than like ‘women’
• Incorporated into profession then some learn to practice
like women
• There is a tension within this
• Within the profession, women struggle to find their
humanity in the same way women struggle in all aspects
of society
• We can learn and support from each exploring this
6.
7. Aim
To empower medical women by fostering
communication, networking, mentoring,
respect, leadership ability and opportunities
among doctors and medical students
8. Initiatives
• $15,000 in leadership scholarships to assist
medical women to attend the 2008 Medical
Women’s International Association Western
Pacific Regional Congress (MWIA WPRC)
• Leadership and website skills training workshops
• redevelopment of the AFMW website and
creation of an online Leadership Portal
• development of a quarterly electronic AFMW
newsletter
• creation of the AFMW Leadership Skills
Database
9. Outcomes
The project met all objectives, including:
• improved communication networks among AFMW and its
members with effective use of internet technologies and
complete redevelopment of the AFMW website
• enhanced opportunities for women in remote areas to
communicate with their peers and participate in internet-
based training
• enhanced access to medical expertise (via the Leadership
Skills Database) to assist AFMW to inform and drive
health-policy development and service development
• delivery of leadership and website skills training
12. Leadership Portal: Most viewed
articles 2008-09
1. How To Negotiate: A Guide For Women In Medicine
2. Women As Medical Leaders – Opening Doors to
Success
3. The Servant Leader
4. UNIFEM Young Women’s Leadership Forum
5. Assertiveness Techniques
6. Open Collections Program – Women In Medicine
7. Stress Management Among Junior Doctors
8. Effective Communication
9. Situational Leadership
10. Maintaining a Work-Life Balance
13.
14. HON accreditation
• In March 2009, the AFMW website gained
Health On The Net (HON) Foundation
accreditation and recognition.
• Created in 1995, HON is a non-profit, non-
governmental organisation, accredited to the
Economic and Social Council of the United
Nations.
• HON Foundation promotes and guides
disseminating useful and reliable online health
information, and its appropriate and efficient
use.
15. Website satisfaction survey
“I love visiting the AFMW site to stay
updated on upcoming events, as well as
some of the inspiring and interesting
articles on the site. I enjoy checking out
some of the links available on Women’s
Organisations to learn more about getting
involved in representing women in the
medical field and beyond.”
17. E-newsletter
• improves communication within the AFMW,
allowing leadership opportunities to be readily
promoted and enhancing member participation
in project development and policy creation.
• primarily attracts medical women as subscribers,
although a more latterly look shows that
individuals in government and other Australian
medical organisations and websites are now
subscribing to receive AFMW news.
18. The multifaceted Bridging
Leadership Barriers project
• Has demonstrated that promoting
women’s social inclusion and building
women’s capacity to take on greater
leadership responsibilities can contribute
to development of public policy and
service delivery
• It has also given us the capacity to engage
more widely with other health-related
groups
19. The Paradox of Medical
Privilege
What she needs is a good route:
An anecdote
20. Women in Surgery
• ‘According to RACS in 2009, 7.8% of
Active Fellows within the 9 specialties
are female.
• http://www.surgeons.org/Content/NavigationM
Page 51
21. What about Academia?
Monash University in1979, 50% of the graduates
were women, and women have been consistently
represented as the top student since the first
graduating class.
Appointments in the Monash Faculty of Medicine
Nursing and Health Sciences in 2008
Level A (most junior): 1132 Women : 586 Men,
Level B : 351 Women : 200 Men
Level C (senior lecturer ): Women 154 :Men 162,
Associate professor level: 38 Women : 79 Men
Professor level (most senior academic): 21 Women : 93 Men.
If we remove nursing, health sciences and social work from
the statistics, the percentage of women in leadership roles in
medicine drops even further.
Associate Professor Jan Coles Monash University Medicine Nursing Health Sciences,
unpublished data
22. What about Academia?
Gender Bias in Medical Education
and Research
• Medical curriculum is “gendered”:
reflects a perspective
predominantly focused on the
male patients. The bias has
occurred in development and
propagation of medical curricula
and is in textbooks, research, etc.
• In general, there has been an
absence in medical curricula of
concepts of gender as a
determinant of health, an issue
which is particularly relevant to
women’s health and wellbeing
• However, there has been some
encouraging progress in this area
23. Medical Women and Leadership
STOP PRESS!!!
THE PIPELINE THEORY
ISN’T WORKING!
24. Back to the Paradox
• Compared to others in the women’s health
world, medical women are perceived as having
access to a lot of resources
• However we are in a position were the status
quo is vigorously defended using age-old
techniques including gendered ones - territories
and entitlement
• In many areas of Medicine women are still
encountering resistance and hostility
• We like many others earn 0.8: $1 of men’s
income
25. Strategic Alliances
• AFMW would like to collaborate with bodies like
AWHN because women doctors ARE more
patient centered, adhere better to guidelines, do
better complex consultations and have better
outcomes Do more prevention/health promotion
AND have greater patient satisfaction!
• AFMW would like to collaborate with bodies like
AWHN because women doctors in many areas
are having their mental and occupational health
affected because of the environment they work
in
26. Strategic Alliances
• We could collaborate to help facilitate
medical culture change in the areas we
have in common which still denigrate
women BECAUSE women's health is
critical to the health of Australia
Thank you!
www.afmw.org.au
Notes de l'éditeur
In addition to links with Australia women’s and medical organisations, AFMW also has links with Medical Women’s International Association and through it the
- United Nations
- World Health Organisation
- Economic and Social Council of the United Nations
- UNICEF
- General Council of International Organisation of the Medical Sciences
World Medical Association
NB Victorian Medical Women’s Society formed by Dr Constance Stone 1896 who then built and worked for free in the Queen Victoria Hospital ‘By women for women’
Here to present this on behalf of Jill
Why isn’t she here?
Her bosses couldn’t spare her from outpatients.
I have been reflecting on the irony of this in terms of her own personal Leadership Barriers
Where the culture of Medicine is still very male dominated in terms of the power structures (unlike my work environment) the usual strategies are used against women and probably other ‘minorities’ to limit their progress:
Isolation
Exclusion from those who can help
Discounting achievements like this grant and award
Strategic Alliances are away Medical Women can try to redress this problem.
Where the culture of Medicine is still very male dominated in terms of the power structures (unlike my work environment) the usual strategies are used against women and probably other ‘minorities’ to limit their progress:
Isolation
Exclusion from those who can help
Discounting achievements like this grant and award
Strategic Alliances are away Medical Women can try to redress this problem.
Given Jill can’t here today she has provided me with these slides and her talk. It seems ironic to me that Jill has despite her achievement been unable to overcome her own barriers. I wanter her to talk about her work because it really is her achievement and it was a great project, and I am disappointed she can’t be here today to present it herself. I think it would be wonderful if you could read her report which will be on the website and contact her about it. Let me briefly present it to you. After I present this project, and before we finish I would like to talk briefly talk about the situation for Medical women and why we need Strategic Alliances.
The project was launched at the Medical Women’s International Association Western Pacific Regional Congress in Melbourne in October 2008. The Congress themes included health, human rights, gender and leadership. The leadership skills afternoon on October 17 was chaired by the President of the Medical Women’s International Association Dr Atsuko Heshiki and project designer Dr Jill Tomlinson. This session was attended by medical women from around the Asia-Pacific region, including 22 Australian medical women who received AFMW leadership scholarships as part of this project.
Used it to get young doctors and students to get them to this international conference where they hear a whole lot of other stuff that they may not have otherwise engaged with
And speaking of the greater organisation, we try to use that: we have med students on our State committees who we encourage to stay on and whom we mentor with the shadow portfolios of the various executive positions. In this way we hope to enhance their skills in being able to participate in the running and administration of organisations.
The Federation’s website and communication strategies were completely redeveloped as part of this project. Website skills education was provided to AFMW members, teaching them how to upload content on a website. This education comprised small group skills training sessions, the development of a practice website that could be accessed online and an e-Book training manual.
As a specific example of engaging the younger women in our group, the medical profession - how exactly to write a web page entry. This opens up such a capacity for enhanced communication
A Leadership Portal was established on the AFMW website, which contains resources to assist medical women build their leadership capacity and skills. The most viewed articles during the project period are listed on this slide, and include topics such as negotiation, leadership, assertiveness, stress management, communication and work-life balance.
The website received traffic from around Australia, particularly in the Eastern states. Traffic to the website comes from sources including search engines, direct traffic and referring sites.
The results of a website satisfaction survey held in April 2009 demonstrates that the website has been very received by members.
And by having it, we can introduce Medical women to the wider world of ‘health’ and other organisations they might not come into contact with – like AHWN!
In addition to the website AFMW has also used Web 2.0 (“two point oh”) strategies to increase its communication with younger members. There are now Facebook groups for AFMW and for its state member organisations.
This is a specific example of engaging the younger women in our group, the medical profession. We have had a vast increase in membership via facebook, particularly of students. We are using social networking to advertise events, with great success.
AFMW has also established a quarterly e-newsletter.
I am disappointed to say that the idea to deviate came to me after a ‘tea room incident’ was related to me last week.
It seems in the Junior Medical Staff – I repeat ‘Junior’ medical staff – so the 30’s and under – in their common room…
Vascular Registrar exclaims as he puts the phone down: ‘What she needs is a good root!’
The only female in the room clears her throat and raises her eyebrow and the only other person in the room (you guessed it, also male) titters…
It transpired the Vascular Registrar had a difference of professional opinion to the Medical ‘Stroke’ Registrar as to the management of a patient who had had a stroke, and this was his frustrated response. I am not sure that would have been his solution had the Medical Registrar been male!
I find it both astounding and incredibly disturbing, that in 2010, amongst young doctors, that this is the response, by a male in a professional disagreement with a female colleague, in an open forum at his workplace. Not after a few beers at the pub, or relating the incident at the footy, but thought to be acceptable to say in the common room of a major tertiary teaching hospital in Melbourne.
So what is happening in Surgery?
I ask myself why this is so different to my part of Medicine? And I think the answer is because in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, we have had the benefits of being in close contact with all you others involved in Women’s Health and it has largely changed out subculture.
However, Women have continued to excel in their medical studies for nearly 130 years and yet they remain under-represented as leaders within the medical profession. Women have been consistently represented as the top student since the first graduating class – so we could speculate that the top end of the Medical town may be missing some of the best and brightest! Remember, 60% of medical graduates are women, 40% of doctors in training are women. So although the ‘pipeline’ theory isn’t working very well, women are in Medicine in the greatest numbers ever.
So what’s the problem and how can you help accelerate change?