MICCAI 2016 Daily - Thursday

for both men and women in the same environment. All my life, everything that I have done, to succeed, I had to be better than the man next door, the man in the office, or the man who was competing. You always had to be better. This was beaten into me. I come from a medical family in Ireland. In medical school, it was always that the women must be better. It’s crazy. You can’t be just as good. You have to be better. Ralph: But why this lack of confidence in so many young, female scientists? You are at a point in your career where you should feel confident with all of your successes. What can we do to help these ladies feel more confident in what they do? Clare: Well, it’s mentoring and opportunities. With mentoring, they need to find someone in the institution or the industry where they’re working. It doesn’t have to be a woman, but it has to be an open minded person who will tell them the truth, the good things and the bad things they are doing, and steer them. The opportunities: the opportunities to speak, to publish, to go to meetings, things like that. This is not always obvious. Men always put their hand up and say they’ll go. Women think, oh, I have a baby at home, I have to do this, my husband might be away. There are a lot more considerations, and they are less egocentric than the man sometimes. So I think it’s opportunities and mentoring that are very, very important for women. The sisterhood and supporting each other is important. I think it’s also recognition by men. Every time I’m asked to suggest a name for something, I say to myself, ok think of one man and think of one woman. I make myself decide to pick a man and a woman always. I very rarely suggest men or women only. It’s conscious effort because I have to make myself do this. Instinctively sometimes I just say the man’s name. You have to be the type-2 decision making that I was talking about in my slide. You have to think rationally, strategically, ask for advice, and it’s harder. Most people, when they are asked to quickly name who should go? Who should do this? You think, the guy I like best: I had a beer with him last night or I play golf with him or he likes the Red Sox. He shares my football or my passion in sports. This kind of thing. Another very silly thing, but it’s a tip for the women is to learn about the football or sport in the country that they are in. There’s a book called hardball for women, and it’s all about learning about baseball. I went to America, and I didn’t know anything about American sports. I didn’t like football or ice hockey, but baseball seemed like cricket because I’m from Ireland. In England, they play a lot of cricket. I like baseball. I “ All my life, I had to be better than the man next door, the man in the office, or the man who was competing ” Prof. Clare Tempany 8 MICCAI Daily: Thursday