Kristina Schärer approached the Department of Clinical Research while still in the final stages of her Bachelor's degree, seeking to get a head start on Master's thesis. Her idea was to start earlier than usual, leaving her more time later for travelling or starting a earlier on her Doctoral thesis.
Could you outline the focus of your Master's thesis?
For my Master's thesis, I'm conducting a scoping review of musculoskeletal disease prevalence among surgeons and proceduralists, looking at what's currently known and which assessment tools exist and have been validated for this population. The starting point of the thesis was the observation that female surgeons often report musculoskeletal complaints, possibly linked to instruments and workstations that weren't really designed with different body types in mind. Before delving into that, however, a solid picture of the existing evidence is needed. This groundwork is meant to set up a later phase of research into whether these prevalence patterns differ by gender, and what might explain that.
Why do you consider gender medicine an important area of research?
Since women make up more than half the population, Gender Medicine is a field that concerns everyone. Despite this, research infrastructure has not kept pace with its importance. There is a high number of female medical students, yet representation declines markedly at senior academic and clinical levels, and this asymmetry is mirrored in the research literature, many studies have historically failed to account for sex- and gender-specific differences in symptomatology, treatment response, and, as in this case, equipment design. The consequences of this gap are not only theoretical; inadequate representation in research and clinical practice can have direct, and at times life-threatening, implications.
What developments would you like to see in the field of gender medicine going forward?
I'd like it to become self-evident; not a specialised sub-field you have to seek out, but something that's simply considered in every study and every field of medicine as a matter of course. It needs to be recognised as essential, so the existing gaps can actually be closed instead of staying invisible.
What outcomes do you hope your own research will contribute to?
Concretely, I hope this work contributes to the adaptation of operating-room conditions, instrumentation and workstation design in particular, to better accommodate the needs of (female) surgeons. More broadly, I hope it increases awareness that surgical tools and environments are not inherently neutral, and that their design has measurable implications for the health of practitioners.
"I felt well supported at the DCR from the outset. Professor Segelov and her team have been consistently proactive, and their expertise has given me both guidance and considerable scope to develop the project independently."
