Jan 2023 Update
“Beyond safe: providing quality abortion care” (RCOG)
In October, I attended the webinar “Beyond safe: providing quality abortion care” run by RCOG focusing on abortion. The speakers included Dr Ferid Abubeker, who spoke about the World Health Organisation’s guidelines on abortion care; Dame Professor Lesley Regan, who gave a talk on the vital role of RCOG in advocating for quality abortion care; and Dr John Muganda, who spoke about his experiences treating abortion patients in his home country of Rwanda. I particularly enjoyed Professor Regan’s talk, in which she focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the provision of abortion care across the world. Whilst there had been a significant increase in unsafe abortion worldwide, access to abortions in countries such as the UK had improved with the introduction of telemedicine. All in all this was a extremely well-run and important event. I would highly recommend anyone attend similar webinars in the future. – Thomas Sebastian Fleetwood-Law, University of Liverpool Ambassador
“Female Genital Mutilation Awareness Event” (Dundee OGSoc)
I attended Dundee University’s Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society’s (OGSoc) Female Genital Mutilation Awareness event in November 2022. I am vice-president of OGSoc so it was a great experience to both organise and attend the event. We got in contact with Dundee International Women’s Centre (DIWC) to ask if they had anyone who would be willing to speak to us medics to raise awareness and improve education of FGM. DIWC are a wonderful organisation in Dundee who work to raise awareness of violence against women and FGM. We then had a speaker from DIWC come along to explain to us the types, signs and effects of FGM and some of the severe physical and psychological damage it has on women and girls across the globe. OGSoc hosts an FGM awareness event annually however this was the first year we had an in-person speaker to deliver the event. I think this helped us educate a wider population of the medical school as in-person events are significantly more interactive and interesting to attend. An interesting learning point from this event was the variety of terms that can be used to describe FGM, such as “cutting”, “halalays” and “gudniin”. It is important to be aware of different terminology so we can recognise signs of FGM and do our best to protect girls and women at risk of FGM in clinical practice. – Jenny Clark, University of Dundee Ambassador