This year’s annual meeting in Chicago once again hosted the extremely popular women’s resource center (WRC), which offered an array of materials and events for women psychiatrists.

Tara McLoughlin, who coordinated the WRC, said, "This year we expanded the resource table at the WRC to include information for psychiatrists from sister societies such as the Association for Women Psychiatrists, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the American Medical Women’s Association."

McLoughlin, who is director of the APA Office of Career Development and Women’s Programs, described the center as a meeting ground for women psychiatrists.

"The Women’s Resource Center provides an informal, comfortable place for women to meet and network with each other at the annual meeting," McLoughlin noted. "The center also hosts three important and popular events—a breakfast for members of the Women’s Mentoring Network, a luncheon for representatives of women’s committees at APA district branches, and a review for the certification exam of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology [ABPN]."

The review session, which was not only attended by women but a few men as well, featured a board examiner as well as a woman psychiatrist who had just taken the ABPN exam. Most of the review session focused on Part II of the exam, and offered tips on how to navigate the video and live patient interview portions.

The Women’s Mentoring Network matches women psychiatrists with network members based on subspecialty, interests, and geographical region. Women requesting mentors are paired with someone who can offer the advice and counsel they seek. Possible areas of focus range from clinical or academic career issues to family issues.

The mentoring group held a breakfast at the annual meeting that began with an introduction to the value of mentoring by Smita Patel, M.D., and McLoughlin followed with an overview of the mechanics of the new program as well as available resources. One attendee suggested increasing the visibility of the mentoring network among training program and residency directors as well as other administrators.

At the district branch women’s committee luncheon, Doris Gundersen, M.D., who is a member of the APA Committee on Women, led representatives from 12 district branches in a discussion about women’s issues in psychiatry. Topics included balancing a career and family, intellectual property issues in academic medicine, and how to best develop local networks for women at the district branch level. Much of the discussion focused on efforts to raise a family while achieving success at work, during which the women shared strategies on telecommuting and securing flexible and reliable child care.

During the session, it was noted that many women in psychiatry are "overachievers" and have a hard time accepting a less-demanding position in order to bring more balance into their lives.

Other events of interest to women psychiatrists at the annual meeting were the Symonds award lecture presented by Nada Stotland, M.D., the Committee on Women’s workshops on mentoring, the APA women’s caucus meeting, and the Aventis women fellows’ luncheon.

Donna Stewart, M.D., chair of the Committee on Women, sees the WRC as having a great impact on the careers of women psychiatrists. "The WRC is filled with useful career and practice information for women psychiatrists and residents. Not only does it contain invaluable information, it also offers the opportunity to meet other women members and discuss challenges and opportunities in our field."