Dear all


After reading the recent post from Becky on med students training I felt great. There is a real sea change happening.

I trained in Medicine in Trinity College Dublin from 76 - 82. At that time there was only one woman senior faculty member and she was corralled into teaching about varicose veins, (which she did with great gusto and then went on to become a Senator in the Irish Dail or parliament), breastfeeding was simply ignored and so many things to do with women and children's health were not even on the agenda.

Change is coming rapidly now in medstudent and junior doctor  training and I am sure it is due to
More women on faculty (we now get to DESIGN what the students learn)
Outspoken nurses, midwives and other allied health professionals (who stopped being handmaidens long ago)
Lactation consultants (who are experts in a field that was previously ignored)
Consumer groups (who are well informed and willing take on the medical establishment)
and finally EVIDENCE - the one thing that you cannot argue effectively against.

I know there is a long way to go but at least in my short professional life time it is good to see changes.

Perhaps the best thing recently for me was my own mother's comment on my British Medical journal article on "breastfeeding and my brain" - 20 Feb 1999. She is also a doctor and battled against the advice of doctors, hospitals and health services in N Ireland to breastfeed all four of her children and work. Despite a brilliant gold medal background her choice to parent and breastfeed limited her options and curtailed her career.

She felt finally vindicated that she had been right 40 years ago  about the importance of breastfeeding, militant about the fact that the health service did not support her choice and is now planning at 76 to learn how to get on the Internet and post an electronic response to my article. She may even join lactnet...

And in a final twist to this N Ireland story, I have just had an email from the person cordinating N Ireland's first Breastfeeding strategy wanting to share some thoughts. I can't wait to tell my mum.


Regards from a very very wet Tropical North Queensland

Mary E Black
Professor of Public Health
Dept of Social and Preventive Medicine
North Queensland Clinical School
PO box 1103 Cairns QLD 4870

Tel 61 740 503670
Fax 61 740 514 322
E-mail [log in to unmask]