Tuesday March 8 was International Women's Day. A chance to show respect, appreciation, and love towards women whilst celebrating the economic, political, and social achievements of women across the world and throughout history.
In recognition of International Women's Day - Marymede Catholic College held our first International Women's Day Dinner on Thursday March 10 with guest speaker Dr Michelle McIntosh from Monash University.
Dr McIntosh leads a team of Scientists at Monash University who are working on developing an inhalant form of Oxytocin so that the lives of thousands of women each year in developing countries can be saved during childbirth.
About 287,000 women in 2016 will die during or after childbirth and 99% are these women are in developing countries. Oxytocin works to stop haemorrhaging – a major cause of death during childbirth. The World Health Organisation recommends that every woman at every birth is given an injection of Oxcytocin and if that were the case, over a 10 year period we could prevent over 41 million cases of haemorrhages with 1.4 million deaths prevented. Currently however, Oxytocin needs to be refrigerated and administered intravenously. Dr. Michelle’s team hope to make it portable, non-refrigerated and inhaled.
This will revolutionise medicine for pregnant mothers and make a huge difference across the world.
In addition to discussion on her research, Dr. McIntosh made a few key points which resonated well with students:
- When thinking about what to do with your life, always follow your passion – if you love what you’re doing the jobs will come;
- You never stop learning – what Dr. McIntosh has learned over her working life is that every step of the way she has had to learn new skills and gain new knowledge that she had no idea she was capable of when she was in Secondary School or as an Undergraduate; the skills are part of being a Scientist and include being an independent thinker, critical analyser, and constantly questioning.
- Grab the opportunities that arise and run with them – but always follow your heart.
Marymede Catholic College would like to thank Dr. Michelle McIntosh for her time and wish her all the very best in her future research.
You can check out Dr. Michelle's profile here: bit.ly/21XgO9T
