Dr Heather Mack and Prof Helen Danesh-Meyer

As a departing gesture, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists’ (RANZCO’s) first female president, Associate Professor Heather Mack, launched the Heather G Mack Scholarship for Women.

Funded by A/Prof Mack, the annual $4,000 scholarship is available to female ophthalmologists in their final year of training or recently graduated fellows to undertake further training in governance-related activities and sit as observers at two RANZCO board meetings.

“The intention behind the scholarship is to make the journey to leadership easier through education and training,” said A/Prof Mack. “Ultimately, my hope is the scholarship will help upskill young female ophthalmologists in governance and make it easier for them to participate in leadership positions within RANZCO and the broader medical community.”

RANZCO’s Women in Ophthalmology (WIO) Advisory Group will be responsible for the selection of the scholarship recipient.

WIO chair Professor Helen Danesh-Meyer welcomed the new scholarship saying it’s exciting to see a greater focus on increasing the number of women in leadership positions in RANZCO. “One of the key elements of WIO’s strategic plan is to provide opportunities for female ophthalmologists to make a greater contribution to governance.”

However, the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted some initiatives in this area, she said, including the planned women ophthalmologist Speakers Bureau given the lack of conferences and travel restrictions. To replace this, WIO is launching a new webinar series called, Myths and Realities, featuring six successful female ophthalmologists from across the world, discussing their area of expertise followed by a Q&A session exploring their views about their personal journey, said Prof Danesh-Meyer. The six speakers featured are:

• Dr Anne Coleman, president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology
• Dr Julia Haller, ophthalmologist-in-chief at the Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia
• Professor Ciku Mathenge, director of the Rwanda Institute of Ophthalmology
• Professor Valerie Biousse, neuro-ophthalmologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia
• Professor Justine Smith, editor-in-chief of Clinical Experimental Ophthalmology
• Dr Christine Chen, head of ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne.

WIO is also continuing to work on developing programmes which address unconscious bias and gender discrimination*, said Prof Danesh-Meyer. “We hope these will be released in early 2021. Watch this space!”

*https://eyeonoptics.co.nz/articles/archive/tackling-unconscious-gender-bias/