Transcript
Hi, my name is Solange Peters. I'm the Head of Medical Oncology in the Thoracic Unit at the University Hospital of Lausanne in Switzerland. I'm also this year and next year the ESMO [European Society for Medical Oncology] President.
It's my pleasure today to discuss with you very briefly about the ESMO World GI Congress, which for the first year as far as I remember, will not be a presential meeting but will be a virtual meeting.
In this GI congress, of course, I will not have any scientific presentation, because again, my focus is mainly thoracic malignancy.
But I have a keynote lecture which is very close to my heart. Not only my ESMO heart, where I had created a dedicated committee for woman careers, which is called Women for Oncology, but also to my profession and my colleagues, because that's also our daily life.
I invite you, if you're interested, to the topic of diversity, which is now extremely important, and in the front scene of everything we do. Not only about gender, but also about diversity of racial origin, everything which defines every professional.
This is a topic in which we have made major advances we are proud of. The women are usually very scarce, very rare in the leadership of oncology. The leadership meaning all the aspects of being a leader in oncology.
We have been showing it in many international journals, too, being author, first or last author of paper, being speakers in annual meetings, or being member of executive boards, committee chairs, or even presidents of society.
This is true in international societies. It is also true in most national societies. These numbers can be improved. Since we created the committee in ESMO, and with lots of insistence by repeating and repeating every time about this preoccupation, that if you look for a woman, you find a wonderful woman professional to take a role then you can really change this dramatically.
We moved in ESMO to 25% of woman speaker at our meetings to almost 40-plus or something which will go quickly close to parity in how women are represented.
I would never say that one gender is better than the other one. I think that every individual is characterized by specificities, very strong capabilities, and also some flaws. I think by balancing the way every little piece of the diversity can be represented, we probably enrich the way we also perceive oncology, the data, and also the care of patients.
The keynote I give is giving some piece, some numbers, of course, but also some ways to move for organization in considering diversity at a national or international level. This starts from, of course, helping to facilitating the conciliation of the family life and the work life.
Not only because not everything is done there, but probably also very strongly changing the perception of woman's career, the self-confidence of woman when it is about moving faster on the front scene, and being able to be outspoken, to impose themselves… So lots of perceptions. I'm not so sure politics can be changed so fast, but perceptions can be worked on.
I invite you to look at, to listen to this keynote, and to give me any feedback would be good in order to make sure that, wherever we are, we can try to convey more everyday this idea that the best society is the most diverse one.
I'm convinced that's what we can do for oncology, and across professionals and across all the various steps of the careers of each other's. Thanks a lot for your attention and looking forward to wrap up maybe at the end and continue this discussion.
