In April, the board of KLF (Swedish Medical Women Association), with its five new board members, had its annual weekend-long board meeting, discussing interesting and important issues to address this upcoming year in our work to reach gender equal health care as well as work environment for physicians).
During the spring, one of our members in KLF reached out to the board after encountering troubles in being allowed to take breaks to nurse her newborn while taking the doctor license exam (in Sweden everyone currently has to take a doctor license exam after finishing approximately 2 years of training before starting specialization). This is something we obviously took very seriously as it is a serious violation of equal rights to be able to practice – without this license you cannot continue your training as a doctor. Our chair wrote a piece about this being completely unacceptable in our national physicians’ newspaper to highlight the issue. She also contacted those responsible for setting up this exam for interns around the country. At the end the physician reaching out was able to take the exam with nursing breaks. We are happy that this physician chose to reach out to us, and we will continue the work making sure something like this will never happen again.
In a few weeks two of our board members will visit Almedalen Week, an annual political festival, with politicians and leaders from the whole country, bringing a gender equal viewpoint on topics being discussed. We are now in the process of planning our annual fall meeting. This year the theme is Women in War.
Yesterday was Midsummer in Sweden so we wish you all a belated happy midsummer and rest of summer!
fig 1. New board of KLF