MWF
At 90
The Medical Women’s Federation recently celebrated its 90th birthday.
Honorary Secretaries Beryl De Souza and Rosalind Ramsay look at why it’s
still important today
“Ninety
years and beyond, is it still a needed organisation?” I hear you ask.
We would like to think so, and our 1200 members agree.
Particularly where women doctors are concerned, there is always the fine balance
to find between work and family. The Medical Women’s Federation (MWF)
is an organisation of like minded women which provides peer support and encouragement
to enable women doctors to succeed in their career choices.
Women now account for 67% of medical students, and it is vital to plan for
this workforce of the future. But this is not just a 21st century issue.
History
Back in the 1940s MWF showed its continuing interest in a range of issues
relevant to women, including social medicine, pain in childbirth, the health
of schoolgirls, and the place of family planning in the National Health Service,
then in its infancy.
While some longstanding causes of grievance for women in the profession had
been eradicated by then, there were still many problems for women doctors
in pursuing their careers and obtaining advanced qualifications. These particularly
affected married women, and questions around part time work came to play an
increasing part in the federation’s activities.
Campaigning issues
Part time work and juggling family commitments with training were issues for
the federation then, and are still very much campaigning issues for MWF today.
Having a voice for women doctors has enabled our concerns and issues to be
raised. As an organisation, MWF has formal and invited representation on a
number of influential national committees and charitable organisations, including
the NHS Employers Medical Workforce (Equality and Diversity) Reference Group,
various BMA committees, and the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence
Awards.
The networking system among women doctors is, you might argue, a natural instinct
and therefore works well for our organisation. It is a phenomenon that is
extremely powerful and which we cannot underestimate. But only by active participation
in the various local and national committees is it possible to put our views
and points across.
Regional and national meetings
MWF is divided into 13 local regional groups (box 1). These groups hold meetings
three times a year, giving members an opportunity to meet and discuss issues
and also to socialise.
In addition we have two annual national meetings: the spring regional meeting
and the autumn meeting in London, both of which attract high powered speakers.
Right to work flexibly
The work to increase women’s right to work flexibly continues today.
In 2007, MWF won a grant from the Women and Equality Unit to investigate the
barriers and solutions to making part time work a reality—not only for
trainees but for doctors in all specialties and at all stages of their career.
The project, headed by Helen Goodyear, president elect, has included coordinated
focus groups for different groups of doctors across the country and telephone
interviews with other part time doctors, both men and women, asking about
their experiences. We plan to launch the results of “Making part-time
work” in June this year.
Press interest and queries
Our officers act swiftly to deal with any issues about women doctors. This
includes making ourselves available to deal with press interest regarding
women doctors. For example, the recent article on gender and rates of consultant
level activity published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine in
January 2008 resulted in an immediate combined response from our organisation
issued by our current president, Sue Ward (available on the website, www.medicalwomensfederation.org.uk).
This paper suggests that women doctors may not be as productive as men in
a clinical setting. In our opinion it is an extremely weak study because there
are several confounding variables which have not been taken into account,
which must be relevant to the results. We argue it would not be too difficult
to design a study that would give a more balanced and fair analysis of the
efficiency and effectiveness of women doctors compared with men doctors if
such a study was deemed to be useful.
In addition, we deal with queries from women doctors wanting advice about
careers and jobs, and our website gives general information on our history,
campaigns, meetings, and much more.
Publications
We publish a monthly newsletter giving useful information on consultations
members may wish to respond to, committees to apply to, grants, and other
meetings of interest. In addition we have an editorial team that publishes
our own journal, Medical Woman, quarterly with articles written mainly by
our own members.
Support and encouragement
We encourage and support women doctors at all stages of their careers. We
have various prizes and bursaries for medical students (box 2), and we also
invite abstract submissions for presentation at our meetings. We try to prompt
our junior doctors to join various committees and to submit papers for publication.
For our consultant members, we give advice and support their applications
for clinical excellence awards. We also encourage our consultant members to
mentor and support our more junior members and to involve themselves in various
committees.
We are aware of global issues affecting women and child health and also issues
affecting women doctors in other continents. MWF members automatically become
members of the Medical Women’s International Association, which represents
women doctors from all five continents. The association’s conference
in Ghana last year was attended by a number of our members.
Our members comprise women doctors in various specialties and in different
roles, including postgraduate deans, professors, presidents of royal colleges,
and chairs of national committees.
Finally, we would like to invite women doctors to become members of a thriving
organisation that will help you make new friends and support and encourage
you to achieve a satisfying career and a good work-life balance. And in case
you wondered, we are exempt from equality rules, so although men are not allowed
to join, we would not bar men who want to attend our conferences and submit
abstracts or posters.
Beryl
De Souza plastic surgery registrar and joint honorary secretary, MWF Chelsea
and Westminster Hospital, London. Rosalind Ramsay consultant psychiatrist
and joint honorary secretary, MWF South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, St
Thomas’ Hospital, London. This article was originally published in BMJ
Career's in March 2008
Why should you consider
joining the federation?
“There is
a lack of medical women in senior positions. The MWF provides an established
network to encourage women to excel in their careers and to support women
through the more varied careers associated with female roles.
“The MWF is able to talk to government on behalf of women doctors. No
other organisation can do this. It can highlight the problems women doctors
face through different parts of their careers from childcare to pension issues
that leave women in a financially less favourable state than men. The medical
profession has the largest gender pay gap among UK workers”—Anita
Holdcroft, co-chair, Medical Academic Staff Committee, BMA
“MWF is needed to provide ‘women’s doctor views.’
This will not be consistent but will change as each individual proceeds in
her career. Each doctor has individual domestic problems—the MWF can
help individual doctors from different specialties to meet, socialize and
discuss. Changes and political action may be needed so it is important that
women doctors get organised and do not lose out because they have babies.
“The early MWF started as a social club and this is important but perhaps
younger members are less keen on this, but are more aware of the need to be
political”—Dame Beulah Bewley, past president,
MWF
“Although female medical students now outnumber male students, women
are still under-represented at the top of the profession. Things have improved
with a woman president of the BMA and of the Royal Society of Medicine and
Carol Black leading the Academy of Royal Colleges, but there is still discrimination
and many women doctors do not fulfil their potential in a profession that
continues to be male dominated'
“MWF provides a supportive environment to help younger women doctors
to see how they can learn to be effective within the changing medical environment
and become politically active. Seeing older women achieving things provides
good role models and mixing with them at meetings provides camaraderie that
may be missing in the work environment”—Wendy
Savage, past president, MWF
“The MWF has provided a safe learning environment to develop my committee
and negotiating skills, learn about different aspects of service organisation
and provide supportive advice at times when career development seemed difficult.
No one else in medicine fulfills this role for a woman combining career and
family”—Baroness Ilora Finlay, past president,
MWF, and president, Royal Society of Medicine
“My tip is, ‘If you don’t like the rules, get into a position
where you can change them.’ The MWF can provide both experience and
direct influence to achieve this”—Fiona
Subotsky, past president, MWF
