Weber*innen Conference 2023: A brief excursion into gender-sensitive medicine

After the event for­mat had been sus­pend­ed for three years due to the pan­dem­ic, eve­ryone in­volved was de­light­ed to come to­gether for input and dis­cussion on the topic of "gen­der-sensitive medi­cine" in three highly enter­taining work­shop ses­sions. An­negret Hof­mann, chairwom­an of the G3 Ar­beitsgemeinschaft für mo­derne Medizin e. V., gave a com­pre­hen­sive intro­duc­tion to the topic in order to create an un­der­stand­ing of gen­der-sensitive medi­cine across the vari­ous disci­plines repre­sent­ed. She fo­cused in par­ticular on the inter­disci­pli­nary, bi­o-psy­cho-socio-cul­tural model of gen­der medi­cine. For ex­am­ple, gen­der has been shown to have an im­pact on heart and rheu­matic dis­eases as well as the mani­festa­tion of men­tal ill­ness­es. As this field of re­search still lacks wide­spread con­sider­ation de­spite hav­ing been insti­tu­tional­ly an­chored for many years now, rais­ing indi­vidual awareness among pa­tients and doc­tors was em­phasized. For this rea­son, the sub­se­quent ques­tion and an­swer ses­sion fo­cused on how to im­prove the inte­gra­tion of the topic into medi­cal train­ing and social awareness.

With this food for thought, we then moved on to the three work­shops, each of which set its own focus in its con­sider­ation of the topic: From "Gender-sensitive health care be­yond the bina­ry" (Ann Kris­tin Augst) to "Gender-specific as­pects of sui­cidal ex­pe­rience / be­havior and sui­cide pre­ven­tion" (Cora Spahn) to "Gender-specific medi­cine - basics and se­lected pa­tholo­gies" (Dr. Hil­de­gard Seidl). In order to ensure that all partic­ipants bene­fited from all work­shops, there was a presentation of the results of the three groups after din­ner. This was fol­lowed by a dis­cussion round with Se­bas­tian Paschen and Moritz Rol­off, the chairs of the bvmd pro­ject "Gender in Medi­cine". As both are medi­cal stu­dents them­selves and run the pro­ject on a volun­tary basis, their exper­tise was very well re­ceived by the schol­arship hold­ers, and dis­cussions con­tinued until after 9:30 pm about "[w]hat we as stu­dents can do to influ­ence the medi­cine of to­mor­row".

To get to know each other, for ex­am­ple, a larger group went to the near­by city center in the even­ing under the guid­ance of an Augsburg "na­tive", where there was a small fore­taste of the city tours the next morn­ing. One of these fo­cused on the histo­ry of medi­cine in Augsburg, while the sec­ond fo­cused on water and its signif­icance in the "World Herit­age City of Wa­ter". Af­ter­wards, all the partic­ipants came to­gether again in the youth hostel for a get-together and lunch before the many new friends made their way back home.

Text: Anna Hench, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen