Celebrating Women Surgeons: Past, Present and Future

To mark International Women's Day 2025, the Surgical Work and Equity Lab (SWEL), in collaboration with the Gender Equity Initiative in Global Surgery (GEIGS), convened a national forum exploring the experiences, achievements, and future of women in surgery in Kenya.

Held under the theme "Celebrating Women Surgeons: Past, Present and Future," the event brought together medical students, trainees, surgeons, policymakers, and advocates for a day of reflection, dialogue, and action on advancing equity within the surgical workforce.

The programme featured keynote remarks from Dr. Violet Kemunto Otoki and panel discussions with leading voices in surgery, including Dr. Miriam Mutebi, Huwaida Bulhan, Dr. Fridah Bosire and Michael Mwachiro. Discussions explored leadership, mentorship, career progression, workplace culture and the realities of balancing surgical careers with family and caregiving responsibilities.

A dedicated session, "Motherhood, Surgery and Everything in Between," created space for candid conversations from surgical experts such as Dr. Fridah Bosire, Dr. Marcella Ryan-Coker, Dr. Jael Mburu and a psychologist, Ms. Nina Kinya, around maternity, training, career sustainability and the structural barriers that continue to affect women pursuing surgical careers.

The event highlighted a growing recognition that achieving a stronger surgical workforce requires more than increasing the number of women entering medicine. It requires creating training environments, workplace policies, and support systems that enable women to thrive and lead throughout their careers.

The insights generated during the forum have continued to inform SWEL's work on surgical workforce sustainability, gender-responsive training policies, maternity support, and return-to-training pathways in Kenya.

By convening diverse stakeholders around shared challenges and opportunities, the event demonstrated the power of dialogue in shaping more inclusive and sustainable surgical systems.