Report from Vice President for Central Europe
Dr. Edith Schratzberger-Vécsei MWIA Regional Vice President for Central Europe
The three German-speaking countries, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, held a meeting in Vienna on the 17th and 18th of November to discuss “Fair Medicine in the Future.” The topics covered societal injustice, physician health and burnout, potential bias in medicine, professional policy related to women doctors, gender and AI in medicine. The opening lecture was given by the author and scientist Barbara Blaha (Austria) who discussed various aspects of injustice. Renate Böhm (Germany) represented and introduced the newly formed ’60 plus Special Interest Group’ (Senior MWIA) and invited all those who are interested to get involved. Psychiatrist Maxi Braun (Germany) and work psychologist Julia Frey (Switzerland) shed light on the issue of physicians’ health specifically focusing on burnout. Occupational physician Andrea Kaifie (Germany) spoke about ‘Bias in Medicine’ and pointed out diagnostic/therapeutic problems and difficulties that can be caused by different skin color or non-familiar social behavior, specifically mentioning that medical textbooks usually take the white male as the norm. The professional representative and FMH President Yvonne Gilli (Switzerland) gave an excellent overview about the changed and still changing professional policy related to women and women doctors and encouraged us to send more women into politics to take responsibility and shape the future. Anke Diehl (Germany) gave a lecture on gender aspects of AI (artificial intelligence) in medicine. The meeting concluded with an open panel discussion with participants from all the three countries where the predominantly male shaping of professional policy was addressed and everybody agreed on the need for more female representation in professional policy based on the recognition that female physicians will soon be the majority in our three countries.
Adelheid Schneider Gilg (Switzerland)
Edith Schratzberger-Vécsei (Austria)
Fig 1. Former and current presidents of Austria and Switzerland alongside current president and vice president of Germany