Episode 71: Women in healthcare-disparities in medicine and leadership

RCP Medicine Podcast

Listen to Dr Rohan Mehra, RCP clinical education fellow, (Infectious diseases/microbiology SPR) and Dr Mumtaz Patel, as they shine a spotlight on female leadership in healthcare. They discuss many of the issues facing women in leadership position within healthcare and the challenges faced in reaching those positions. Inequality remains deeply engrained within the healthcare workforce and urgently needs addressed and Mumtaz and Rohan outline how this could be done.
Dr Mumtaz Patel is a consultant in nephrology in Manchester as well as senior censor and vice president for education performing presidential duties including chair of council for the RCP. Mumtaz previously launched a global women leaders programme, on which she remains an active educator, which empowers female physicians to advance into leadership roles, which continues to be hugely successful to this day. This programme aims to narrow the gender leadership gap globally and is tailored to a local context to address these issues in smart sustainable targeted ways. It is also aligned to the Emerging women’s leaders programme which focuses on the same issues within the UK which Mumtaz has also been instrumental in creating. Mumtaz also recently won the prestigious ‘Outstanding Leader award’ at the Global women in Healthcare awards.

Resources:

https://www.rcp.ac.uk/events-and-education/education-and-learning/clinicians-as-leaders/emerging-women-leaders-programme

https://www.rcp.ac.uk/news-and-media/news-and-opinion/celebrating-international-women-s-day-2024-global-women-leaders-programme/

References:

1. Female global health leadership: data-driven approaches to close the gender gap. Lancet 2019; 393: 521-523.
2. Downs JA, Reif LK, Hokororo A, Fitzgerald DW. Increasing women in leadership in global health. Acad Med 2014; 89: 1103–07.
3. HRH Global Resource Center. Resource spotlight: gender and health workforce statistics. https://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/gender_stats (accessed Dec 25, 2020).
4. Kwedi Nolna SK, Essama Mekongo PE, Leke RGF. Mentoring for early-career women in health research: the HIGHER Women Consortium approach. Glob Health Epidemiol Genom 2017; 2: e3.
5. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/health-workforce/en-exec-summ-delivered-by-women-led-by-men.pdf
6. Linkage Inc, Intersectionality in the Workplace and the Advancement of Women Leaders, 2020
7. Power, privilege and priorities
8. Boylan J, Dacre J, Gordon, H. Addressing women’s under-representation in medical leadership. Lancet, 2019, Volume 393: e14.
9. Ferry G. Inspirational women in medicine. Lancet 2017; 390: 1825.
10. RCP strategy 2022-24
11. RCP global strategy
12. RCP - A 2020 Vision
13. World Economic Forum. Global gender gap report, 2018.

Music: bensound.com
This episode was funded by Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Europe) Limited. Vertex had no involvement in the creation and elaboration of this episode and all views and opinions expressed by the presenter and guests are solely their own.