WP on Women and Family Medicine: Activities at WONCA Sydney 2023

December, 2023

WONCA Working Party on Women and Family Medicine activities: WONCA 2023, Sydney, Australia

WWPWFM Pre-conference:

The preconference was held on the 25th of Oct 2023 at international conventional centre in Sydney, Australia from 9am to 14 hours.

It was a hybrid meeting with 30 in-person attendees and 10 online attendees from various parts of the world. The theme of the pre-conference was “Wonca Woman: Working as Women and Working for Women. The chair welcomed everyone and presented the overview of the working party. Two workshops were conducted: “Global perceptive of women’s health: What can WWPWFM do?” by Prof. Amanda Howe and team and “Cognitive Impairment in Violence Survivors: PTSD and beyond" by Prof. Jinan Usta and Prof. Lucy Candib. There were robust discussions around these two topics. It was followed by a talk from Prof. Anna Stavdal on the leadership role in Wonca and “Reflection of the early days of WWPWFM” by Prof. Marilyn McMurchie. It was an honour to have Prof. Marilyn McMurchie in our Pre-conference as she was one of the leaders that developed this working party. The pre-conference was a successful event where women could connect with new and old generations and develop new ideas for the betterment of the women in the world.

Collaboration with young doctor movement (YDM):

During the pre-conference, we had a session in the afternoon with the female doctors from the young doctor’s movement. A workshop on “Professional career development and opportunities: Thinking ahead in the early years” was conducted by Prof. Amanda Barnard and team. More than 60 participants attended this workshop and there was robust discussion around the topic. The summary conclusion was that it was important to talk about career development and opportunities from the early days of a doctor’s professional life. This event was followed by marketing our working party at the young doctor’s forum along with other working parties. We had many females who were interested to join our working party and they have given their details to us.

Main conference 26th-29th October 2023 at ICC, Sydney, Australia:

We had about 40 abstracts accepted and various presenters had a good audience and the sessions were fruitful. In addition,

Awards received by our dear members:

Awards were given to some of our dear friends on the 28th of Oct 2023. This was a green day and so we were dressed in green. Suha Hamshari received the Global five-star award for the year 2023, Paula Henry received the Montegut award for North America and Wangani Kumwenda received the Atai award.

WWPWFM had 3 workshops that were conducted on the 27th and 28th of October 2023.

• The Practical Skill workshop: Responding to family violence.

This workshop took place on the 27th of October 203. About 70 participants attended this workshop. This workshop was conducted by WWPWFM with leadership of Prof. Amanda Barnard and in collaboration with the SIG. Family Violence group. There were great small group discussions and tips from various countries.

• Fireside wisdom: (Sharing our experience as women with our international colleagues):

This workshop took place on the 28th of October 2023. About 40 participants attended it. Male allies also supported us. Robust discussions took place during the breakout session with various tips emerging for female doctors to improve their quality of life.

YouTube videos:

WWPWFM Fireplace café short Medium

Video by Prof Lucy Candib:

• Workforce Workshop: Women family doctors in the workforce

This workshop drew a robust attendance of 30 participants, fostering engaging and insightful discussions.

• Organisational equity committee workshop:

This workshop was conducted on 29th October 2023, the last day of the conference, attended by 20 people as it was the last day of the conference. There was great discussion around gender equity. We hope to conduct an online session with all the regional presidents to promote the development of regional organisational equity committees.