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Becoming YOU! Women in Healthcare Leadership Retreat Project

A diverse group of African women healthcare leaders and their allies smiling together in a lush outdoor setting beside a lake — capturing the vibrant community, cross-cultural connection, and identity-first leadership development at the heart of Dr. Natalie Pickering's Becoming You African Women in Healthcare Leadership Identity Retreat
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I met the incredible Dr. Britney Grayson on another project during which we connected quickly in our shared vision to support women in healthcare leadership. Dr. Grayson has been training surgery and anesthesia residents from several African countries since 2020. Based on the results of a survey her training workgroup compiled, she invited me to build and facilitate a retreat experience for 15 female residents to provide focused professional and personal development opportunity in building their very own leadership approaches.

African Female Healthcare Professional Experience

Dr. Grayson’s workgroup survey and research found that the experience, issues, and needs of women in medicine in Africa are different, especially in surgery. Findings include that despite women in Africa accounting for 40% of the medical student population, only 7% of the African surgical workforce is female.

53.1 % of female respondents stated that sometimes or often they are treated negatively by coworkers based on their gender (compared to male respondent percentage of 91.8% who have experienced this rarely or never)

72.4% of female respondents stated that sometimes, often or almost daily they are treated negatively by patients based on their gender (compared to male respondent percentage of 93.8% who have experienced this rarely or never).

Findings also noted significant discrepancies in gender-based differential treatment in the hospital (workplace) and community setting.

Bringing Becoming YOU! to High Impact Women in Africa

The planning has begun! In light of survey data and Dr. Grayson’s experience, we are planning a retreat experience with the goals of:

● Creating a safe space to discuss these issues and collaboratively work together to note their impact, supporting one another in a strategy to build awareness and resource the community in addressing them

● Building healthy community via sharing, networking, mentorship, peer support

● Encouraging residents via opportunity to illuminate personal and professional strengths, recognize ways to leverage these in support of self and other; respectfully inform, train, advocate

● Improving recruitment, retention, and well-being of African female surgery trainees, faculty, volunteers, leadership

Partner With Me!

If you would like to contribute a tax-deductible gift to support this project, please click here and write Project 198-Retreat Dr. Natalie in the comments block. Funds will support my transportation, assessment materials and preparations for this project. Thank YOU for supporting these incredibly high-impact women committed to serving their communities via much-needed specialized training and ensuring their own well-being as they do so!

Surgery and anesthesia residents with Dr. Grayson on their 2023 retreat.
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