Women in Medicine National Conference
Comes To Burlington

        The nation’s oldest organization for lesbian doctors is holding its national conference and retreat in Burlington in July. Conference organizer Dr. Mara Vijups expects anywhere from 150 to 400 participants from among its 1700 U.S. and Canadian members.
      The three-and-a-half-day conference and retreat offers continuing medical education workshops plus personal growth opportunities and recreational activities. This year’s theme is the Women’s Health Symposium. “Last year it was around bigotry. It’s always a broad topic range,” said Vijups, “with every specialty represented.” Among this year’s offerings: hormone replacement therapy, breast cancer, urinary stress incontinence, obesity, heart disease, and “gynechiatry.”
      On the more personal side, workshops will examine the effects of terrorism, discuss pluses and minuses of civil union, and “the person of the physician – how much of ourselves do we leave at the examining room door, and how much do we take inside with us, and why,” explained Vijups.
      Women in Medicine, colloquially and affectionately referred to as “dyke docs,” has played an important role in mentoring lesbian medical students, who are often isolated and in many locations subject to covert or overt harassment or discrimination. “I was a student member in 1990,” recalled Vijups. “The women doctors I met then [at the national conference] are still my closest friends and mentors.
      “We don’t have role models in med school and residencies. So we try to be there as mentors and role models, not just as docs, but as parents, community members,” Vijups continued. “We can provide references to residencies that are known to be safe, or accepting environments, or to schools that have and enforce non-discrimination policies and hospitals that offer domestic partner benefits, or maybe to a teaching hospital where one of us is on the faculty.”
      The group’s membership, currently estimated at 1700, is open to M.D.’s and osteopaths (D.O.’s), medical school students and residents. The exact location of the conference is not publicized outside the membership to protect the privacy of attendees and to avoid potential future discrimination at home.
      “It’s not entirely safe here” in Vermont, said Vijups. “We still have to deal with the public, with everything going on in the legislature. That affects how patients treat you.”
      Asked whether she had heard of any recent discriminatory incidents at the University of Vermont College of Medicine (from which she graduated), Vijups said no. “That sort of thing has been forbidden and disciplined against since 10 years ago. But in many other places it’s tacitly encouraged, and filing a grievance is sometimes worse than the harassment.”