By: Cassie Jones
President – Gender Engagement in Medicine

This past spring the SMSS has been making changes to improve students’ groups within the College of Medicine. There was a heavy focus placed on combining student groups with aligning values. The hope with the new changes is to encourage collaboration amongst groups to come together with a larger task force to facilitate events and experiences for medical students. What was formerly Gender Engagement in Medicine, QHealth and Association of Womens Surgeons have all been amalgamated into a new group under one mission statement. The new group will now be named Gender Representation in Medicine (GRM) with a mission to provide the medical student body with an intersectional and unbiased perspective to human health with an emphasis on promoting and understanding the ways that gender, sexuality, and sexual orientation can contribute to inequities for both physicians and patients. Through a strong emphasis on education and advocacy we will build a community of medical students keenly aware of these issues with the tools they need to be change makers. [GRM] aims to support and facilitate initiatives working towards a culture of inclusivity in medicine and medical education.

Events classically held by the individual groups will be continued such as the mentorship program for female identifying medical students with women surgeons to gain valuable insight into the gendered experience within surgery. GRM will continue sexual health awareness week formally led by Gender Engagement in Medicine with highlights such as Sexual Health Trivia Night and the Sexual History Taking lunch talk classically facilitated by Dr. Clark. GRM is excited to be involved in pride festivities in the month of June including the parades in both Saskatoon and Regina.

Looking to the future Gender Representation in Medicine would like to expand on what has been done in the past. In the fall members of GEM had the opportunity to speak with political leaders at the legislature building to advocate for increased abortion access within our province. With a larger task force and new roles GRM hopes to continue to advocate for gender issues within our province. New events and missions’ medical students can look forward to this year include the distribution of gender pins to be displayed on ID badges as well as introducing new lunch talks such as ‘Parents in Medicine” and the return of the Trans Health Panel where students have the opportunity to hear the perspectives and experiences from members of the Trans Community.

Gender Representation in Medicine hopes to expand their presence to social media in the fall term to expand their reach for educational content surrounding prevalent gender issues. The group is excited for all the new changes and potential for new and exciting initiatives this year.