Diana Whitten!

Monday, October 26th, Diana Whitten, director of The Vessel, will be coming to speak and show clips of her film. The Vessel is a film about Women on the Waves, a ship that travels around the world and provides safe medical abortions to women in countries where abortion is illegal.

We are so excited to have her and to hear her story of the film, her research, and Women on the Waves.

Check out more info and/or donate to The Vessel here!

Women's Health News

A great blog published by a medical librarian at Vanderbilt on Women's Health issues!

Speaker Announcements!

Carol and I are oh so excited to start announcing our speakers for this year!

The confirmed line up:

Wednesday, October 28th at noon:

Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, Dr. Gloria Richard-Davis, Dr. Kathie Hartman of the Tennessee Women's Health Report Card to give a panel discussion on the state of Women's Health in Tennessee.

Friday, October 30th at noon:

Dr. Rebekah Gee, MD, MPH, co-chair of Women's Health for Obama for America, reproductive rights activist and researcher, and huge girl crush of Carol and Jacci to speak on the state of Women's Reproductive Health and Legislation in the US

Other exciting events:

-women's self-defense training provided by the Vanderbilt Medical School Safety Committee

-training in pelvic exams, STD testing, contraception in CELA

-Shade Tree Service Day!

More updates to come!

New this year to Women's Health Week - focused recruitment

One of the historical issues with women's health week has been recruiting women to actually participate in receiving their well-woman exams. Today Jacci and I met with Lara Bratcher, a fourth year MD/MPH student who will be spearheading our recruitment efforts at local women's shelters. Women's Health Week culminates in a service day at Shade Tree clinic.

In response, we are going to send groups of 2-3 students to each of the shelters 2-2.5 weeks before that Saturday to present to women at shelters: What is a well-woman exam? Why is it important? What resources are available to me in Nashville? Lara is designing the curriculum, and we are putting together gift bags for these women, which will include an informational brochure along with other goodies like makeup and toiletries.

We're pumped about launching this educational component to women's health week!

A tiny, but huge crisis

Tennessee has one of the country's worst infant mortality rates. It's due to a combination of lack of education, low income, lack of access to resources, and low overall health. I don't think you can read this article without tearing up a little.
Check out this Tennessean article on Tennessee's infant mortality rate.


Also, a response from Feministe about the failure of sex education and its impact on the infant mortality rate.


Thanks to Medical Students for Choice for posting this and bringing it to our attention!