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VOLUME 27, ISSUE 1 • MARCH 2023 Full issue »

The Women in Movement Disorders Special Interest Group: Paving the way

In February 2021, the MDS approved the request of the creation of the Women in Movement Disorders Special Interest Group (SIG). This application came from a group of movement disorders specialist women who wanted to create a network of women sharing the same passion for movement disorders.

Considering the current situation for women in MD, the main objectives of this SIG are the following:

To link women leaders in the MD community with women at the beginning or in the middle of their carrier as support and guide
To help women regarding social issues and management in clinical and academic fields
To raise awareness of processes in the MDS infrastructure and how to achieve leadership positions, how to start engagement in MDS and how to advance to the top levels of leadership
To collaborate with different committees and programs in the MDS.

The Steering Committee has established an action plan with short-, intermediate- and long-term goals and activities.

The SIG has three main domains of actions: networking, outreach and education. During these two years, they have completed several actives:

Engagement in the Women in Movement Disorders Facebook Group. (There are more than 1,000 members currently)
The Instagram account @mds_women_sig (there are more than 800 followers)

The MDS Women in Movement Disorders Leadership Spotlight Series (10 interviews are available on the MDS Youtube page)
A survey to better understand gaps and needs between women in MD
A webinar about Gender in the Workplace

In addition, at the first SIG meeting during the MDS International Congress in Madrid, more than 100 attendees engaged in person and online in an exciting dialogue about possible future activities. In the next year, the plan is to publish regular newsletters on the webpage and Facebook, to work together with the LEAP program, to have another webinar, to establish a database of women researchers in MD, and to connect with other societies sharing the same interests and objectives.

The group is planning to meet virtually before summer and in person in Copenhagen during the MDS International Congress. New ideas are welcome and personal engagement to foster the group activities is needed too. Everyone supporting our ideas as mentioned above or adding new ideas for women in MD is welcome to join!

Contributors

On behalf of the SIG Steering Committee:

Elena Moro, Yih-R Wu, Lelia Ali, Melissa Armstrong, Tamine Capato, Deepa Dash, Susan Fox, Regina Katzenschlager, Francesca Morgante, Claudia Trenkwalder and Ericka Blackford

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