All six women candidates were elected out of a total of 8 vacancies and from a field of 38 candidates.
In an earlier blog piece, I expressed concerns about diversity of the RACS Council. These are a few tweets expressing my concerns.
With only 6 women out of 38 candidates for the 8 vacancies on council, I held grave fears that much needed female representation on the RACS Council would not improve. The numbers of candidates, only 10 of 38, who made any mention of issues relevant to the EAG Report was woefully low. I am so glad to be proven wrong.
Rather than just hope that RACS Fellows would take the effort to consider voting, it was important to get the message out there as to why voting was especially important on this occasion.This meant, spreading the word on social media, directly speaking with colleagues and mass emails. I hope that my efforts made a contribution to the final outcome.
I was however, touched to receive a direct message from the RACS on Twitter stating
"thank you for your efforts in promoting the elections, and supporting the candidates, across social media, it was greatly appreciated"
The EAG Report has had the RACS in the spotlight. To have an election result with the all too common outcome where all successful candidates were male, would have been a damning indictment on the College after all that has been said about a culture that needs to be overhauled.
The results indicated that there is real appetite for change and demonstrates that there is indeed every reason to be hopeful about the future of the RACS as it catches up with community expectations.
Congratulations to all of the successful candidates and let's hope that they live up to their promise to help change the culture within the field of surgery. Congratulations also to voting Fellows of the RACS for demonstrating that there is an appetite for change.
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