Women's SIG Question Series:
What is one of the biggest career challenges that women in movement disorders face?

“One of the biggest career challenges that women in movement disorders have to face is their underrepresentation in leadership roles within professional organizations and institutions. This challenge can be rooted in psychological cognitive biases related to workplace gender roles. The underrepresentation creates obstacles in attaining validation and respect comparable to male counterparts. An example that illustrates this bias is when heads of departments address male colleagues with titles, while referring to female colleagues by their names, exacerbating psychological preferences towards a gender compared to another in terms of respect and validation of professional roles. Balancing work and life adds another layer, prompting many female doctors to step back. Those who embrace challenges often bear a higher mental and physical burden than male counterparts. Access to career advancement opportunities poses an additional hurdle, with unequal visibility in conferences and limited research funding opportunities perpetuating the leadership gender gap.”

Leila Ali, MD
Neurologist
Tunis, Tunisia

“Having the first child. From the planning, through the maternity leave until returning back to work with the life totally transformed. That was the test bed for my career. Although my work has been based on study and training, I was completely unprepared to that. I was not taught how to plan for a child peacefully.”

Marina Picillo, MD, PhD
University of Salerno, Italy

“The occurrence of career breaks as a result of personal commitments, especially to have and raise children. The burden of care in these situations tends to fall on women, both as a result of social pressure but also, pressure from women themselves. These breaks frequently coincide with a time when competitive grants/ research become pivotal in career enhancement. How to be professionally resilient in terms of career breaks is something that a large proportion of us may be dealing with. Another issue, perhaps truer for neurology trainees in developing countries, is that enhanced training in the form of a movement disorders fellowship may become difficult as there is unspoken pressure to marry and/or have children, as soon as basic neurology training is completed. Together, we must find a way to overcome these challenges and support each other through them.” 

Divyani Garg, MD, DM
All India Institute of Medical Sciences
New Delhi, India 

“Time management: We are a compassionate bunch! We want to take our time to understand patient’s/families’ journey and provide patient-centered care. But there are so many patients waiting for us and hard to help everybody in need. We love our families and friends and want to spend quality time. Sometimes we are pulled in so many directions and hard to do everything we want in a 24-hour day!”
 

Michiko Bruno, MD
Medical Director, Parkinson's and Movement Disorder Center
The Queen's Medical Center
Honolulu, Hawaii, USA