A scholarship dedicated to the Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi Moltancini and intended for doctoral students and postgraduate students in scientific subjects.
The role of women in science and medicine: this is the theme of the first edition of “Las ciencias en la red. The excellences in pink”. The initiative promoted by the Umberto I polyclinic in Rome in collaboration with the Mida Academy and with the participation of Rome Technopole and the Oltre association, which was held this morning in the great hall of the George Eastman Institute in viale Regina Elena in Rome.
A scientific dissemination event that provided for the allocation of a scholarship dedicated to the Nobel Prize Rita Levi Moltancini and aimed at young doctoral students and postgraduate students in scientific subjects. The godmother of the event was Duchess Maria Consiglio Visco Marigliano. Numerous interventions alternated and were moderated by the spokesperson for the director general of Umberto I, Maria D’Amico, and by Vincenzo Aloisantoni, coordinator of the international commission for scientific cultural exchanges OmceoRoma. During the debate, among others, the general director of the Umberto I Polyclinic, Fabrizio d’Alba, the dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Domenico Alvaro, the administrative director of Umberto I, Barbara Solinas, and the regional councilor Lazio Luciano Crea. The project was presented by the president of the Mida Academy, Antonella Minieri and the head of the Breast Unit of the Umberto I Polyclinic Andrea Botticelli. The call for the scholarship, published in recent weeks, was reserved for female students enrolled in one of the undergraduate courses at La Sapienza University of Rome and for doctoral and postgraduate students in medicine and surgery.
The national health system “is increasingly pink: 67 percent of health workers are in fact women, and in the medical profession, thanks to retirements, the presence of women among the team of professionals is increasingly older,” D’Alba explained. What else do we have to do? Give adequate space because the skills, abilities, desires and enthusiasms are what will lead men, as well as women, to reach the places they deserve in organizations. Obviously -she added- we need to fly where those barriers that limit access to certain roles still exist and are present, although fortunately they are diminishing. The Polyclinic is a place where this becomes the daily bread, where there are no environments of discrimination and there is a desire to create opportunities in the logic of not having to talk more about quotas, about gender, but only about abilities”.
In the Lazio Region “we recently joined the Giunta and we find ourselves in a situation of worrying economic and financial deficit, both for the Region’s budget and in terms of health, but we must not give up and we still have many challenges ahead – Crea continued. We have already started working on the new emergency organization to restore dignity to citizens. We have started to work on the elimination of the certification lists and on the new organization of local medicine. We have many other challenges to face and among these, support and make accessible the beginning of the investigation: it should no longer be news to talk about women but rather be part of the general order of things. Women are occupying as much space as possible, the data tells us that the direction is the right one and we must move forward along those paths”.
“Gone are the days when it was believed that women were better suited for the humanities than for other medical sciences. The facts show it like this: at the moment, medical enrollment tells us that the two sexes are equal and at the time of graduation there is a clear predominance of women to indicate that there is a genetic predisposition and aptitude towards the scientific world,” he stressed. . Alvaro. This initiative “comes from the desire to combine three aspects that drive our business: patient care, student training and research. The name of Rita Levi Montalcini was born in an absolutely natural way: the idea of promoting and helping young students who had ideas to carry out and innovative projects. Botticelli added. Many questions have arrived and today the projects will be presented, with a commission that will evaluate them and three winners, but the important thing is that all the projects will be shared and publicized with the intention of carrying them forward”. According to the Mida Academy, “research and prevention also mean savings in the health economy and therefore a reduction in public spending – Minieri concluded -. We hope that the State will also focus on the investigation, which in Italy is essential since we have luminaries in Italy and we must make sure that they do not go abroad but that the primacy stays here, in our Italy”.
