Medical Mums chat

In this cross over chat between Medical Mums and Coda, Dr Chris Bowles & A/Prof Nada Hamad discuss Gender Equity in Medicine – What is it & Why Does it Matter?

Chris and Nada take a deep dive into gender equity in medicine. Including the impact of the pandemic and the possible solutions.

First, they discuss the difference between gender equity and equality. Equality is the act of treating everyone the same. Whereas equity, focuses on levelling the playing field so that there is more representation and participation. This includes asking questions such as why inequity exists? And why aren’t women progressing?

Evidently, women experience gender inequity at different times of their career. It may be after they’ve had children, or it may be when they want to step up and take on leadership roles.

What is most obvious however, is that the impact of gender inequity in medicine extends far past the individual. Gender inequity impacts how we look after female patients, what kind of questions we ask in research and how we perform and apply that research in the context of women’s healthcare.

Chris and Nada discuss what needs to happen to make the system more accommodating.

This includes implicit bias training, intersectionality training and leadership training. Investment in leadership skills and training is crucial. We can have all of the right policies in place, however, if leadership doesn’t set the standard to encourage uptake, inequity will always exist.

Join Emergency & Trauma physician, Dr Chris Bowles and Haematologist, A/Prof Nada Hamad, as they discuss gender inequity in medicine. They inspire us to identify and challenge the inequity that exists today.

In this episode Dr Bek Ledingham chats to Dr Talat Uppal about Heavy menstrual bleeding in a peri-menopausal woman. We recorded it on World Menopause day we aim to share up to date information about managing this common problem that often does not get the attention it deserves.  Key take home messages-  1) Initiate treatment of symptomatic women at the first visit  2) Order pelvic ultrasound day 5-10 of cycle 3) Mirena is the most effective management option 4) Uterus sparing surgical procedures are preferred to hysterectomy.  References mentioned during the show  https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/publications-and-resources/resource-library/heavy-menstrual-bleeding-clinical-care-standard-2017 https://www.jeanhailes.org.au/health-a-z/menopause?gclid=Cj0KCQjwtrSLBhCLARIsACh6RmgRy9D2b18efnY6i4-2CiA4us-55aTwNLLQXUBegh9VJuwDn6gPGfwaAkbvEALw_wcB https://ranzcog.edu.au/womens-health/patient-information-resources/heavy-menstrual-bleeding https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/patients/patient-information-leaflets/recovering-well/endometrial-ablation-for-print.pdf http://oxfordstmedical.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Mirena-Information-Booklet.pdf https://ranzcog.edu.au/RANZCOG_SITE/media/RANZCOG-MEDIA/Women%27s%20Health/Patient%20information/Hysterectomy-pamphlet.pdf?ext=.pdf http://www.cincyobgyn.com/webdocuments/novasure-brochure.pdf ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dr Talat Uppal is an Obstetrician & Gynaecologist who currently works both at the Northern Beaches and Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospitals as a Visiting Medical Officer. She is the Director of Women’s Health Road, and has set up an innovative integrated multidisciplinary ‘Journey’ model with a strong family centred approach to maternity care. www.womenshealthroad.com.au She is also a Clinical Senior lecturer in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Northern Medical School, University of Sydney. Her previous, decade long role was based at Manly and Mona Vale Hospitals, as a Senior Obstetrics Staff Specialist and Clinical Director of Women’s, Children & Family health. She is the past Chair of both the NSW State Reference Committee and NSW RANZCOG Education Subcommittee She is a Fellow of the Australian Association for Quality in Health Care as well as a Fellow of the Australasian College of Health Service Management She is the ex  joint co-ordinator of Diploma (DRANZCOG) OSCE examination as her special interest is supporting the role of General Practitioners in the Women’s health context. She is an RANZCOG media spokesperson. She is fluent in 3 languages and has much overseas exposure with volunteer teaching work.

In this episode Bek Ledingham talks to to Professor Gordon Parker about Burnout. 

Professor Gordon Parker AO is Scientia Professor of Psychiatry, UNSW, was Founder of the Black Dog Institute and its initial Executive Director, Head of the School of Psychiatry at UNSW and Director of the Division of Psychiatry at Prince of Wales Hospital.

His positions with the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists include being Editor of its Journal. Positions with legal organisations include the NSW Guardianship Board and the NSW Administrative Appeals Tribunal. In 2004 he received a Citation Laureate as the Australian Scientist most highly cited in Psychiatry/Psychology’. In 2018 he received the prestigious James Cook Medal from the Royal Society of New South Wales and was afinalist for the NSW Senior Australian of the Year. He . recipient of the 2020 Australian Mental Health Prize. His research has focussed on the mood disorders. He has published 23 books and over 1,000 scientific reports.

His first of fiction was published in 1966 and his latest novel (“In Two Minds”) in 2017. In the 60’s, he wrote for The Mavis Bramston Show and OZ Magazine, was an ABC Science broadcaster, a book reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian, and in 2004 had a play (“Personality Games”) produced by La Mama in Melbourne. His autobiography “A Piece of My Mind: A Psychiatrist on the Couch” was published in 2012. His co-authored book on Burnout (Burnout: A Guide to Identifying Burnout and Patterns to Recovery) was published in July 2021.

The Becks are back to bring you some recommendations about what we're watching and reading (we finally got a little bit classy- though, 'reading' via audiobook, so not top class) to get you through this never ending pandemic.  A bit of a bumper episode because we figure there might be a little extra watching & reading happening in the various iterations of a smaller life happening around the nation.  We discuss Ms Represented with Annabel Crabb- ABC iView Punky Brewster- Stan White Lotus- Binge Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist- Stan Feel Good- Netflix  We discuss two books: A Room of Leaves- Kate Grenville Honeybee- Craig Silvey Some quick shout outs to Dr Death - Stan and This Way up Series 2- Stan  And a plug for the third Medical Mums Sing in Solidarity project. If you need a bit of music in your life and want to join our virtual choir or band for This is Me, find us on facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/303494070901641/ We'll be back soon to hopefully brighten your day a bit with some talk about the not so important things. :) 

Bek Ledingham chats to author, anaesthetist, mum and self publisher Emerald in this episode about her massive effort self publishing the gorgeous children's book I will always come home to you. This book has a treasured place on the bookshelves of 3000 medical mums and dads around the country. 

Emerald is an advanced trainee in Anaesthetics, currently on a retrieval rotation with LifeFlight and RFDS while studying for fellowship exams. She lives in Brisbane's suburbia with her husband, 8yo daughter, dog, cat and 4 chickens. Emerald's self published book, "I will always come home to you", was conceived when she was studying for primary exams and had to move away from her family. It took 18 months to write, illustrate and publish and has now sold almost 3000 copies across 5 countries. Emerald is also a multi award winning cake decorator with plans to tackle the cake competition circuit in 2021.

Our first ever in depth interview, Bek Ledingham, Rural generalist and medical educator from Broome WA chats to two of her favourite women who both have some impressive runs on the board in Medical leadership. 

Lucie Walters- Lucie Walters is the Director of Adelaide Rural Clinical School. Her experience in rural medical educational leadership spans across the continuum from vocational, and prevocational arenas to medical school longitudinal integrated clinical placements. She was instrumental in developing Australia's reputation for longitudinal integrated clerkships, contributing particularly to Flinders University, Otago University and University of Northern Ontario programs.

Lucie has worked as a rural generalist in Mount Gambier since 1993 with clinical scope during this time covering: general practice, emergency medicine and inpatient care. She currently works in Aboriginal health at Pangula Mannamurna. With a PhD in medical education, Lucie recognises the importance in educational scholarship and context relevant rural clinical research. 

Lucie is passionate about improving the health outcomes of rural people through the education, training and professional support of rural doctors. She is past President of the Australian College or Rural and Remote Medicine.

 Sarah Chalmers- Dr Sarah Chalmers is the current ACRRM president. She worked in East Arnhem Land for 15 years, before moving to North Queensland in 2019. She has worked in private general practice, hospitals and remote Aboriginal communities and homelands in the Northern Territory and is now working as an Rural Generalist in Winton in Western Queensland. She has always been interested in medical education, teaching medical students at Flinders University in the Northern Territory, and is now at James Cook University.  She also enjoys teaching and supervising registrars.  Her clinical interests include remote practice, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, occupations and DNA sports medicine.

We chat about leadership, mentors, signing up for things that scare you and Life as one big dress up party. 

There is plenty of wisdom and lashings of fun in this podcast and I hope you enjoy.

Recorded just before Christmas 2020 Bec Young & Bek Ledingham chat about what we'd been watching. 

Legit good- Queens Gambit 

So bad it's good (for Bek anyway) Prom 

Left field recommendations- Bec recommends The Flight Attendant- Binge 

                                           Bek recommends Special - Netflix.

For future episodes we'd love to have Medical Mums chat about what we're watching, reading and listening to. 

If you'd like to co-host an episode with Bec, let us know. 

We had a slight technical issue with our intro episode which means you can only listen on Spotify. 

Here it is again so everyone can be introduced - wherever they're listening. 

So, we've decided to give a podcast a red hot go.

Meet some of our foundation team on this episode and hear about why we wanted to move into the world of podcasting.

We would love you to get involved, please get in touch.

This episode you will hear a little bit about...

Cheryl Choong - rural generalist, skin cancer and skin care aficionado, mum, Korean drama enthusiast, proud WOC.

Clair Stafford- Medical Student and mum to a beautiful little girl, plus pregnant with boy/girl twins! Also loves cats.

Nada Hamad- Haematologist, intersectional feminist, president of ANZTCT and mother of amazing girls.

Bec Young - orthopaedic surgical assistant, and mum of 3 primary school aged children. A worker bee who loves to chat, and loves to listen as she goes about her busy life!

& Bek Ledingham- Rural Generalist, Eternal Optimist, Unexpected online choir director and super proud Mum and sibling band manager...amongst other things.

Watch this space for future Medical mums chat instalments.

Thanks to talented medical mum Kristen Dang for the gorgeous cover art.

So, we've decided to give a podcast a red hot go.  

Meet some of our foundation team on this episode and hear about why we wanted to move into the world of podcasting. 

 We would love you to get involved, please get in touch. 

 This episode you will hear a little bit about...   

Cheryl Choong - rural generalist, skin cancer and skin care aficionado, mum, Korean drama enthusiast, proud WOC. 

Clair Stafford- Medical Student and mum to a beautiful little girl, plus pregnant with boy/girl twins! Also loves cats. 

Nada Hamad- Haematologist, intersectional feminist, president of ANZTCT and mother of amazing girls. 

Bec Young - orthopaedic surgical assistant, and mum of 3 primary school aged children. A worker bee who loves to chat, and loves to listen as she goes about her busy life!

& Bek Ledingham- Rural Generalist, Eternal Optimist, Unexpected online choir director and super proud Mum and sibling band manager...amongst other things.  

Watch this space for future Medical mums chat instalments. 

Thanks to talented medical mum Kristen Dang for the gorgeous cover art.