WELCOMING A NEW WiCTS COMMITTEE CHAIR

Indu Deglurkar as the new Chair of the Women in Cardiothoracic Surgery Committee (WiCTS). She is a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at the University Hospital of Wales and has served on the WiCTS Committee since 2020.

It is a privilege and honour both personally and professionally to contribute to the development of the Women in Cardiothoracic Surgery Committee (WiCTS). Driving equality and diversity in cardiothoracic surgery is an enormous responsibility but it is also a great opportunity to shape and strengthen the committee.

I fully understand the challenges that women surgeons face and much work needs to be done to achieve gender equality and diversity in cardiothoracic surgery. I hope the experience gained through multiple leadership roles throughout my career and the views of the committee members will strategically drive the vision and further development of WiCTS.

The WiCTS Committee has made positive progress, supporting initiatives in education, research and leadership development. We are very pleased that the Francis Fontan Leadership Fellowship led by WiCTS is being launched in March.

I look forward to driving forward our agenda through new workstreams such as the development of a mentoring programme to support women surgeons early in their career, and coaching opportunities to help senior women surgeons succeed in leadership and executive roles.

Working together

There is great value in collaboration. I would like to reach out to my counterparts in the United States and Australasia to exchange ideas and learn from their experiences.

EACTS has a growing number of women members, and I would like to engage directly with these members to highlight the professional opportunities offered by EACTS and the committee. As such, one of my first goals is to work with EACTS Council and develop a bespoke database of women members, focus on growing this network by reaching out to all the European nations.

There is strength and power in numbers. A larger network will give women surgeons a stronger voice and I hope, over a period of time, we can drive policy reforms that have been inherently discriminative and inequitable. I think EACTS Council can be a powerful driver for this change.

The members of the Women in Cardiothoracic Surgery Committee are a fantastic group of dynamic and talented women who have the passion to drive forward our agenda. Change will manifest itself, slowly but surely.