When Rural Women Take the Lead - Leadership and Resilience Reimagined
Tracks
Auditorium - Plenary
| Friday, October 25, 2024 |
| 3:45 PM - 4:50 PM |
| Auditorium |
Details
Stream: BUILD UP RESILIENCE: Strategies for Building Thriving Rural Communities
Speaker
Dr Sarah Chalmers
Immediate Past President and SLO
ACRRM
When Rural Women Take the Lead - Leadership and Resilience Reimagined
Abstract Overview
It is reasonably well recognised that female leadership styles are different to their male colleagues. This presentation aims to explain how and why this occurs, both through review of current literature and the experiences and opinions of Female Rural Health leaders across Canada and Australia.
Despite female doctors in equal numbers across both our counties, our leadership is dominated by men. To change this, we need to understand why, and design specific solutions for all of us to be equally represented in leadership.
Resilience is considered a key element to success in rural practice, and various strategies have been proposed to both teach and enhance resilience. Despite this, many rural doctors, at various stages in their career, find their resilience shifts to resistance, then burnout. But must this be? Is it possible to strive for a sustainable system where this “resilience” is not required?
Building on discussions and personal experiences, we will explore resilience and sustainability, through a lens of rural women in leadership.
This session isn’t just for female rural doctors with leadership aspirations. It is for all of us, to understand how to improve recruitment, resilience and retention of rural doctors in communities across Canada, Australia and beyond.
Despite female doctors in equal numbers across both our counties, our leadership is dominated by men. To change this, we need to understand why, and design specific solutions for all of us to be equally represented in leadership.
Resilience is considered a key element to success in rural practice, and various strategies have been proposed to both teach and enhance resilience. Despite this, many rural doctors, at various stages in their career, find their resilience shifts to resistance, then burnout. But must this be? Is it possible to strive for a sustainable system where this “resilience” is not required?
Building on discussions and personal experiences, we will explore resilience and sustainability, through a lens of rural women in leadership.
This session isn’t just for female rural doctors with leadership aspirations. It is for all of us, to understand how to improve recruitment, resilience and retention of rural doctors in communities across Canada, Australia and beyond.
Biography
Dr Sarah Chalmers is a Rural Generalist and Medical Superintendent at the Joyce Palmer Health Service on Palm Island. Her Advanced Skills Training (AST) is in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health. She is the Immediate Past President of ACRRM, and a board director of RDAA. Sarah is the Chair of ACRRMs Respectful Workplaces Committee, and a member of RDAA's Female Doctors Group. Her clinical and education expertise in remote health was developed over 15 years of living and working in East Arnhem land in the Northern Territory. She has held Academic positions with Flinders University, and more recently with James Cook University. Her clinical interests include remote practice, occupational health, mental wellness and First Nations healthcare. She has also worked at local, national and international level as a Rugby Union match doctor. In her spare time, Sarah has a tolerant family - husband Vola and 2 rowdy daughters.
Dr Sarah Lesperance
Immediate Past President
Society of Rural Physicians of Canada
Co-presenter
Biography
Dr. Sarah Lespérance is a rural generalist who currently divides her clinical practice between rural Nova Scotia and remote communities in the Canadian Arctic (mainly Nunavut). She is the Immediate Past President of the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada, and has held several site medical education leadership positions at Dalhousie and Memorial Universities, where she is actively involved in teaching medical students and family medicine residents. Her research interests include rural physician wellness and resilience, latent tuberculosis treatment in Nunavut, development of a competency-based curriculum for rural operative delivery, and factors impacting womens' choice of maternity care provider. She has held multiple leadership and advocacy roles, and has spoken at provincial, national and international forums on issues related to rural health equity, training and education, and rural maternity care services. Sarah and her partner Fraser have two children, and when she is not working, she can be found long-distance running, organizing local highland dance competitions, or heading out with her family hiking, cross-country skiing, camping, or whitewater canoeing.
