Giving Tuesday and WIMS

Authors: Avital O’Glasser, MD; Shikha Jain, MD

Keywords: women in medicine, non-profit, #GivingTuesday, leadership, professional development

Tomorrow, November 29th, is #GivingTuesday.  Positioned immediately after Black Friday and Cyber Monday,  Giving Tuesday was created in 2012 to be “a day that encourages people to do good”.  Now commemorating its tenth anniversary, Giving Tuesday has expanded into a global movement to inspire and harness the power and potential of radical generosity (especially after days of indulgence and shopping).

This Giving Tuesday, we ask that you consider adding Women in Medicine ® (“WIM”) to the list of beneficiaries of your generosity.

Why donate to WIM? WIM is an organization dedicated to educating and empowering women in medicine and engaging males allies to combat and eliminate the gender gap.

WIM is also a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that has launched a remarkable breadth and depth of programming to educate, inform, and impart skills to women in healthcare.  The inequitable gender gap remains pervasive throughout society, and the professional American healthcare system is no expectation. Now more than ever, as we approach the two year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic, women in practice, women in training, and women in the pipeline need ongoing opportunities to be empowered and to engage allies.  WIMS has also provided a very special focal point around which women, and their allies, have connected, collaborated, and supported each other.

The Women in Medicine Summit may be a singular event, but it is not the solo event in the WIM catalog of programs.  WIM has expanded its reach, impact, and foundational work throughout the annual cycle through its recurring lecture series and longitudinal initiatives such as the Leadership Primer for early career faculty, the Leadership Accelerator for mid-career faculty, and the Inclusive Leadership Development Lab and other HeforShe initiatives for male allies, medical student programming, and a research lab.

Any amount of discretionary support for Women in Medicine ® enables strategic investments in the most promising initiatives, including new educational content, convenings, and leadership training. General funds also support important technology developments and applications in low-resource settings.

So, on #GivingTuesday 2022, please donate to WIMS.

About the authors: Avital O’Glasser, MD, is a hospitalist at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and the medical director of OHSU’s Preoperative Medicine Clinic.  She is the inaugural editor of the WIMS blog (Twitter: @aoglasser). Shikha Jain, MD, is an associate professor and oncologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the founder of the Women in Medicine Summit and Women in Medicine® (Twitter: @ShikhaJainMD).