Safety in numbers at BVA Congress?

How do men and women differ in terms of educational development and career progression? This is a question that will be discussed during one of the sessions at the BVA Congress in London this September, at which RCVS Senior Vice-President Lynne Hill has been invited to speak.

This year's congress is entitled 'Vets, animal health and the human factor: veterinary medicine in the 2015' and aims to address the changes currently facing the veterinary profession in terms of what it does, who its members are and the environment in which it operates.

As a basis for discussion in the session 'Safety in Numbers', Lynne Hill will be presenting the results of the RCVS Survey of the Profession, undertaken earlier this year and published in June.

In view of the ongoing rise in numbers of veterinary graduates in the UK, the implications for the future employment of veterinary surgeons in the UK will also be discussed.

Speaking alongside Mrs Hill will be Dr Helena Cronin, Co-director of the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics, an expert on Darwinian theory and author of the best-selling The Ant and the Peacock.

Dr Roger Mahr, President of the American Veterinary Medical Association, will be bringing an international perspective to the debate as he considers the impact of a higher proportion of women veterinary surgeons in practice in the USA.

The session will follow the BVA's presitigious Wooldridge Memoral Lecture, to be delivered by Professor Dame Carol Black, President of the Royal College of Physicians.

The lecture - 'We're all professionals, so does sex matter?' - will look at the dramatic change in the gender balance of the veterinary profession in recent years and consider whether this is something to worry about.