Who's Who
Officers of the Medical Womens Federation 2008 - 2009
President - Dr Helen Goodyear
Helen Goodyear is a Consultant Paediatrician at Heart of England NHS Trust
where she has worked since 1995. She is an honorary senior lecturer for the
University of Birmingham. Her special interests are Paediatric Dermatology
and ambulatory Paediatrics, being the Lead Paediatrician for A+E and the Paediatric
Assessment unit. She single-handedly set up the Paediatric Dermatology service
at her Trust and continues to expand it. She has a strong interest in medical
education which includes running a number of courses and is an examiner for
medical students and RCPCH. She is an Associate Postgraduate Dean in the West
Midlands Deanery, taking the lead on flexible training, careers management
and is also Head of the Postgraduate School of Paediatrics. She is RCPCH flexible
training advisor for England and Wales and represents the college on the Improving
Working Lives intercollegiate committee. She was Honorary Secretary of the
Medical Women’s Federation from 2000-2004.
Helen qualified in Bristol in 1982 and worked in the South West and London areas including 7 years at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. She has written a number of research papers and was awarded her MD in 1997 and MMEd in 2003. She trained flexibly as a Senior Registrar on the PM(79)(3) scheme. She is committed to trying to improve the working lives of doctors whether they train part time or full time and to make training and working in any specialty a realistic career option for women doctors.
Helen is married to a company director and has 4 children aged 11 to 18 years.
The work/life balance was brought sharply into focus by the birth of her twin
daughters and she worked part time for 11 years. She enjoys sport including
running, tennis and skiing and is a member of the local David Lloyd club.
In 2009, she is hoping to run the London marathon for the third time.
President Elect - Clarissa Fabre
Clarissa Fabre is a full-time principal in general practice. She initially trained in paediatrics, but moved to general practice following the birth of three children and a career gap of seven years. Her surgery has changed from being a sleepy single handed village practice to a 3-partner, part-dispensing, training practice with 2 registrars, and 2 part-time salaried doctors (previously on the flexible career and retainer schemes.
Ensuring that flexible training is available to all who need it at critical stages of their careers is one of her main concerns. Obtaining national agreement on maternity locum cover, ensuring that salaried doctors are not exploited (especially in practices run by private companies) and correcting the anomaly in widowers’ pensions are other areas on which she is working.
Clarissa has been active in medical politics for many years, on the Local Medical Committee, the Primary Care Trust and, most recently, the BMA General Practitioners Committee, as the elected member for East and West Sussex.
She joined the Medical Women’s Federation in 1978, when barriers appeared in her career, with few opportunities for flexible training in paediatrics and geographical isolation. The most important objective of her involvement in MWF is to ensure that women doctors are provided with the opportunities to combine a fulfilling family life with maximum achievement in their professional careers.
Her two daughters are junior doctors.
Honorary Secretaries - Dr Rosalind Ramsay and Dr Beryl De Souza
Rosalind Ramsay
Rosalind Ramsy (right) is a consultant psychiatrist in the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She is a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge where she was in the second year of women students. She did her clinical training at the Royal London in the East End where she was an active member of the London Medical Group. She qualified in 1986. After house jobs at Whipps Cross and the Royal London she joined the Middlesex/UCH SHO psychiatry rotation and then the Maudsley and Bethlem SpR rotation. She began work as a consultant psychiatrist in adult mental health in Lambeth in 1996 and has since held posts in this area with a variety of teams. From 2001 she has been an associate director for clinical governance and Trust NICE implementation lead. Throughout her career she has been involved in writing, editorial and research work with an interest in service development and has also taken part in College based activities.
In 1995 she was a founding member of the Women in Psychiatry Special Interest Group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists and has been newsletter editor, secretary and most recently chair of the group. From 1998-2000 she was editor of the MWF London Association newsletter.
Ros is married to a GP and has three children. She was a flexible trainee as an SpR and now works part-time (7 PAs).
Dr Beryl De Souza
Beryl De Souza is a Registrar in Plastic Surgery in London. She started off in Biochemistry as a graduate of Chelsea College, University of London. This was followed by a Masters of Philosophy in Nerve Regeneration at The Royal College of Surgeons of England, University of London. This prompted her to study Medicine and she is a graduate of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, University of London. She qualified in 1992. After house jobs at St Bartholomew’s and Whipp’s Cross she went onto a joint Demonstrating post at Royal Free Hospital and worked in Accident and Emergency. She then joined the Middlesex/University College Hospital surgical rotation. She went onto specialise in Plastic Surgery and has completed training time on the London Pan-Thames rotation and at Great Ormond Street Hospital. She spent a six month period as a flexible trainee in Plastic Surgery and experienced the difficulties of setting up a flexible training post.
She was appointed member of the Opportunities in Surgery Committee at The Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2003. She is also on the Medical Student Liaison committee and has worked on setting up selected study modules specifically in Plastic Surgery. She has been actively involved in Women in Surgical Training (WIST) and has been on the conference organising committee from 2004. She joined MWF in 2005 after attending and presenting at the Autumn meeting.
The important reasons for her involvement in MWF is to try and facilitate a knowledge base and networking opportunity for women to provide the tools necessary to have satisfying professional careers and a healthy work-life balance
Beryl is married to a Consultant General Surgeon and has two children
Honorary Treasurer - Dr Anita Holdcroft
Dr Anita Holdcroft has been a consultant anaesthetist and academic since 1977 when she finished her training at the Hammersmith Hospital and Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London.
Her posts since then have been in London at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School as their first Senior Lecturer in Anaesthesia in the Department of Surgery, a locum post at St Georges Hospital, followed by a Senior Lecturship and then Readership at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital. She left the UK in 1980 to take up a new appointment as the Professor of Anaesthesia at the University of Jos and Consultant at the Jos Teaching Hospital in Plateau State Nigeria receiving an honorary Fellowship of the West African Medical College. On her return to the UK she secured academic career posts in anaesthesia at all levels of training an unprecedented achievement.
Anita is internationally recognised for her work in gender medicine, particularly in pain medicine and she has written many books, chapters and scientific publications. A recent spin off is her political activity for women in medicine.
Anita qualified MB ChB in 1969 and MD in 1983 from Sheffield University and
chose anaesthesia because it seemed to offer part time work for married women.
She migrated to London to seek the best training and met her husband, an ophthalmologist,
on the way south. She started her family after her FRCA in 1973 but during
her later training years, and in quick succession had four daughters. The
opportunities for part time work came and went briefly. Anita could often
be seen journeying to international conferences or anaesthetic examination
venues accompanied by one or more of her daughters (when young for breast
feeding, when adult for sightseeing). It is only in the last decade that Anita
has had time for political activity following the slow realisation that dreams
of equality generated in the 1970s by the Sex Discrimination Act were not
reality. Anita enjoys walking and is a life member of the Youth Hostels Association;
she has been a Methodist Local Preacher since 1971.
