Welcome to the first ‘President’s Chat’ of the Queensland Medical Women’s Society (QMWS), which is shared with you on International Women’s Day 2023. Today’s guest is Dr Jasmina Kevric, a true role model.
About Today’s Guest – Dr Jasmina Kevric
Dr Jasmina Kevric is a surgeon, currently working in Melbourne and originally from Bosnia, who was elected Victorian Junior Doctor of the Year 2022.
Dr Kevric tells us about the findings that have come out of her survey of Australian and New Zealand medical parents’ experiences of infertility, pregnancy, and parenthood.
Read her articles: Kevric et al., 2022 and Kevric et al., 2023.
The survey, which received more than 1000 responses, showed that medical parents often delay parenting because of work related factors and the average age of medical mums at the birth of their first child is higher than that of the Australian national average.
Almost half of the respondents experienced pregnancy problems such as miscarriage, still birth and post caesarean complications. High rates of infertility and in-vitro fertilisation were recorded.
It is unclear what factors are responsible for these findings and increasing awareness will hopefully lead to an open discussion on what is needed for the current and future generations of medical parents.
Dr Kevric hopes that increased access to flexible and part-time training and recognition of parental leave will be a first, important step forwards. She urges us to identify and report any workplace issues to enable practical changes.
QMWS is aware of the discussion of fertility preservation within the medical community and is planning to host a guest speaker at a future dinner on this important topic.
View The President’s Chat
Contact Dr Jasmina Kevric
If you would like to contact Dr Jasmina Kevric
- On Twitter: @DocJasmina
- Instagram: dr_jasmina_kevric
- Email: [email protected]
