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08 Mar 2021

Choosing to challenge cultural norms and unconscious bias

  • VCCC Alliance
  • Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Geri McDonald been at Peter Mac since 2016 as the inaugural Director of Prevention & Wellbeing. The portfolio encompasses all of the non-clinical components of cancer care and the social determinants of health care including, cancer information services, health literacy, wellbeing services, consumer engagement, family violence, diversity and inclusion, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and patient experience. In 2020 Geri was recognised and awarded the ProBono 25 people of Influence in the Australian social sector.

In 2018-19 Peter Mac developed its first gender equity strategy where “we aspire to lead the health and medical research community in achieving gender equity and ensure women have the same leadership opportunities at all levels”.

We know women are underrepresented in leadership roles, we know that women make up more than 50 per cent of medical school graduates, but are still underrepresented in specialty areas. While women make up 71 per cent of the Peter Mac workforce, they continue to be underrepresented in senior levels in research and medical specialties.

While these statistics are cause for concern and contemplation we are seeing change; in order to facilitate the change at Peter Mac we must remain vigilant and focused on why this change is important

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre Gender Equity Strategy 2018-2022

Our board and executive have shown tremendous leadership in acknowledging the need for improvement at Peter Mac. We have amazingly talented people and as the next generation enters the workforce it is heartening to see the fearlessness of these young women not only calling out gender discrimination but providing suggestions to enable culture changes.

Make it difficult to act on our biases

Finding ways for women to connect, develop relationships with leaders and provide mentoring opportunities is essential for women to progress. The best skill an influencer has is communication, listening, observing and identifying gender bias in ourselves. One option to progress and support change is to consider how we recruit - to make it more difficult to act on our biases. Using blinded reviews to ensure the gender or race of the applicant is silent in the shortlisting process. Perhaps we should be integrating gender into clinical audits and other ways of measuring quality of care to highlight gender differences in health outcomes but just as importantly in patient experience.

We need to create a culture of inclusion that not only includes hiring more women but focuses on underrepresented and marginalised people such as LGBTIQ and non-binary people as many of these marginalised groups face the same challenges as outlined in gender discrimination. Diversity without inclusion is pointless and essentially results in exclusion.

We must challenge the notion that working long hours into the evening makes you more valuable; it doesn’t, it just makes you tired.

Peter Mac has taken the panel pledge to ensure that we have equal men and women on speaking panels. Requesting flexible work arrangements has always been available however some women still face real concerns that this may impact on leadership opportunities. Interestingly one of the unintended consequences of the COVID pandemic has been the normalisation of flexible work arrangements for all - what a shame it took a pandemic!

We must challenge the notion that working long hours into the evening makes you more valuable; it doesn’t, it just makes you tired. Women take on more unpaid work globally resulting in an undervaluation of labour. Women continue to struggle with juggling multiple roles and often cite forgoing leadership opportunities in order to care for a family.

Education opportunities at Peter Mac that challenge cultural norms and unconscious bias have been very useful but does a one-off session have an impact? Providing a safe environment for staff to challenge bias is so important. The health system is essentially a social institution and we should be considering it as an opportunity in which to begin to challenge gender norms that negatively impact the nature of health care providers and patients. Health professionals should recognise that women with limited health literacy are more vulnerable to hospital readmission than are men with limited health literacy. Empowerment of patients through health literacy is an important mechanism to improve the power dynamics in the relationships between patients and clinicians.

Peter Mac family violence program

A staff survey conducted in 2019 at Peter Mac identified 34 per cent of female staff members had experienced some form of family violence, shocking but not surprising. Our family violence program aims to equip staff to create safe environments for our colleagues and patients to disclose and seek support. Since the program's inception over 550 hours of family violence leave has been taken by staff and we continue to provide support for them to feel safe in their workplace.

Timely opportunity to speak up

We have had an extraordinary few weeks in Australia with examples of gendered violence and toxic workplace cultures in our highest level of government. The responses from our leaders to be honest are disappointing, where is the outrage from our male leaders, why are we so complacent? The recognition of Grace Tame as Australian of the year gives me great hope. Grace’s bravery in using her traumatic story of surviving child sexual abuse has provided a voice for those that have not been able to find theirs. Tame is an extraordinary woman and her mantra of “using her voice and will not be silenced” is well aligned with the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day. Our job is to support our colleagues to challenge gender bias in the delivery of health care and in our workplace. 

Geri was recently appointed to the VCCC Strategic Program Steering Group - Program 8 Health Equity.

 

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