The Department of Orthopaedics in Emory University School of Medicine, along with the Grady Health Foundation, are joining forces with the Perry Initiative to increase the number of women interested in careers in orthopaedics. Workshops will be held Friday and Saturday, March 20 and 21.
The Perry Initiative is a non-profit organization that uses its Perry Outreach Program (POP) and the Medical Student Outreach Program (MSOP) to expose young women to career options in Orthopaedics. The-initiative is historically successful at recruiting women into science and medicine, with 84 percent of the initiative’s alumni pursuing STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) majors at the college level, including 21 percent in engineering and 45 percent in pre-medicine.
The workshop on Friday, March 20, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., is geared toward female medical students from Emory and Morehouse Schools of Medicine. A workshop on Saturday, March 21st from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., will focus on high school females.
Both days include age-appropriate laboratory-based workshops that introduce surgical and engineering skills along with small group mentoring from prominent female surgeons, biomedical engineers and business professionals in orthopaedics. Each workshop is lead by faculty physicians attending at Emory University and Grady Hospitals.
"We are very excited about this community outreach program as an opportunity to provide young women exposure to orthopedic surgery and engineering as a potential career opportunities," says Diane Payne, MD, MPT, Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Emory University. "I am very thankful to the Grady Health Foundation and to Emory, for their contributions to help make this program attainable for these young women. If we can reach just a few students, who don’t realize the potential opportunities available to them, and help them understand that a career in surgery or engineering is obtainable, then we have made a difference in their lives."
The Perry Initiative workshops now reach approximately 960 high school women and 120 medical students annually. This year’s workshops are held at T3 Labs-380 Northyards Boulevard (Technology Enterprise Park), Suite 380-B Atlanta, GA 30313