WELCOME to our final newsletter for 2019. As we draw upon the close of 2019, our annual report confirms that it has been a year of tremendous networking opportunities for our members both locally and internationally, at the Medical Women’s International Association (MWIA) Centennial in New York.
Some of us have taken on international roles in the World Health Organisation committee, and in other project teams for Violence Against Women, Life Balance, and Cervical Cancer Prevention, to name a few. Through our international collaboration with esteemed colleagues, we each have the opportunity to gain skills whilst making a difference on a global platform.
Mental health in doctors continues to prove a challenge and it is the young doctors transitioning from university to hospital that are particularly at risk of depression and suicide (Beyond Blue 2013). At our recent Strategic Planning Meeting, my suggestion that we try a form of ‘mentoring’ that is ‘mentor-instigated’, for our young members, as a start, was unanimously agreed upon. The idea is that we will make regular contact by phone or face to face with our young members who are working as interns, residents and registrars in training, to ‘check in’ on how they are going and what areas they feel they need support in. Hopefully those who might find it difficult to speak up for themselves will find this method easier. We’ll call it a mentoring type of ‘check in’, rather than creating a formal mentoring program. Our older members who read this and who are not committee members are invited to put their hands up to make a monthly call to young VMWS doctors. We will distribute the brief regarding the type of engagement and some useful communication tips, upon request.
You will have noticed form our tweets and website that we have joined forces with our friends at Doctors for the Environment (DEA), and I have taken the climate change issue to MWIA as a key resolution to advance.
VMWS continues to support and sign the petitions from our colleagues advocating to save Medevac and we congratulate their continued effort.
From all of us at VMWS we wish you a wonderful festive season and we look forward to reconnecting in the new year.
