Region Report April – June 2021

Vice President: Edith Schratzberger-Vécsei (Central Europe)

On the 29th and 30th of May the German Medical Women´s Association (Deutscher Ärztinnenbund) organised the first joined meeting of Austrian, German and Swiss Medical Women. The title of the conference was ‘borderline situations’ – a pandemic and its consequences’. The conference was held online. There were more than 150 colleagues participating. The lectures covered many aspects around the pandemic and gave insights not only into medical aspects but also talked about social, ethical and economical questions. In the afternoon and on Sunday there were workshops and issue groups on various topics. Thanks a lot to the German association and specifically the German president Christiane Groß for all the organisational work. As one part of the conference, the regional meeting of the Central European region took place on Saturday afternoon. It was a real pleasure to have the possibility to meet at least online after a very long time. Past MWIA Ppresident Bettina Pfleiderer, former Vice President Central Europe Khatuna Kaladze and myself chaired the meeting together. We had short video greetings from MWIA President Eleanor Nwadinobi and MWIA Secretary General Padmini Murthy. We talked about challenges in our region and possibilities of cooperation. In the regional business meeting we decided to follow the example of the Western Pacific region and agreed to set up online afternoon tea meetings on a regular base. Furthermore we agreed to work on our ‘online skills’ and Khatuna Kaladze agreed to offer a work shop at our next Central European meeting – which hopefully will be a physical meeting… Finally, I would like to report about the elections in the European Women’s Lobby which took place on the 7th of June. Our MWIA representative Bettina Pfleiderer not only was elected as a board member, but also as a member of the executive board and since she had the highest number of votes amongst all the candidates she was elected as EWL Vice President – congratulations Bettina!