Virtual conferences to highlight opportunities for women in oncology
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Two upcoming virtual conferences will focus on the advancement of women in oncology.
The LEAD conference will take place in a virtual format Oct. 2, and the Women in Medicine Summit will be presented virtually Oct. 9-10.
Healio will act as the official media partner for the Women in Medicine Summit, which will address issues important to women in the profession. The summit will combine traditional faculty presentations with breakout sessions, allowing for small-group interaction and conversation.
“This is a unique opportunity for professional and personal development, and the content is particularly important as we work to address the many inequities that exist in our health care system,” summit founder and chair Shikha Jain, MD, FACP, assistant professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology at University of Illinois Cancer Center, told Healio. “This is an excellent way to not only learn more about these inequities, but to learn skills and tools that can help address them.”
Jain is also the consulting medical editor for Healio’s Women in Oncology.
The LEAD conference, previously held in Santa Monica, Calif., will offer breakout scientific sessions on academic topics such as hematologic and solid tumor malignancies, as well as career development issues.
“This is a multifaceted approach to bringing women and those interested in women’s issues together to promote leadership and development for women in oncology,” Nina Shah, MD, a hematologist/oncologist, associate professor of clinical medicine at University of California, San Francisco, and co-chair of the LEAD conference, told Healio. “It’s not just an academic conference, but also a leadership development conference.”
Actionable advice
The leadership development components of both meetings will focus on practical, actionable advice that clinicians can share at their institutions. Women in Medicine Summit attendees will learn how to navigate a path to leadership, address systemic inequities, optimize social media, navigate through adversity, lead in a crisis, get involved in a national organization and start a group dedicated to women in medicine. The summit will also explore how to identify and overcome implicit bias and the role of identity in perceptions of wellness, burnout and balance, as well as provide opportunities for speaker and media training with experts from multiple disciplines and professions.
The LEAD conference will address how to rise through the ranks of the oncology profession or effectively change career pathways. Self-promotion and branding to boost career success will be discussed, as well as effective communication skills. Meeting attendees will have the opportunity to hear career vignettes from highly successful women in the field. Other presentations will focus on diversity and gender disparities in the time of COVID-19.
“One of the things COVID has pointed out is that gender disparities in medical careers, particularly oncology, run deep, and this is exposed more during a time of crisis,” Shah said. “Preliminary data has shown that productivity goes down among female clinicians during these times because they have other responsibilities. It’s hard to drill down all the ways in which women specifically have had to work within this crisis.”
Need for male allies
Although the meetings are aimed at advancing women in the field of oncology, both welcome the attendance and participation of men. The first day of the Women in Medicine Summit features the separate half-day track, “HeForShe: Allies in Equity.” This track has been curated for and targeted to male attendees and will include topics such as, “Putting allyship into action,” and “Use your platform to close the gap: Creating an equitable culture.”
“These equity efforts will not be effective unless we have male allies who are working toward the same common goals,” Jain said. “We created programming in this track to help men who are leading many of these institutions understand the challenges that exist and also how they can implement various skills and strategies to achieve equity.”
Shah also encouraged her male colleagues to attend the LEAD conference, where participants will have the opportunity to interact via chat and other engagement tools during and after live streaming sessions.
“I think many men will enjoy attending to get another perspective on leadership development, maybe one they haven’t had at their institution,” Shah said. “I would encourage men to take a couple hours and join us. I think it will be a great discussion.”
For more information:
Shikha Jain, MD, FACP, can be reached at sjain25@uic.edu and on Twitter @ShikhaJainMD.
Nina Shah, MD, can be reached at nina.shah@ucsf.edu.
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