Despite advances in gender equality, women still experience inequitable gaps in global health leadership, and barriers to women’s advancement as leaders in global health have been well described in the literature. In 2021, the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health conducted two virtual working groups for emerging women leaders to share challenges and suggest solutions to advance women’s leadership in global health. In this paper, we present emerging themes from the working groups, provide a framework for the results, and discuss strategies for advancing women’s leadership in global health. The objective of this paper is to synthesize and share the themes of the two working group sessions to provide strategies for improving women’s leadership training and opportunities in the field of global health. Approximately 182 women in the global health field participated in two virtual working group sessions hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health using the Zoom platform. Participants were divided into virtual breakout rooms and discussed pre-assigned topics related to women’s leadership in global health. The participants then returned to share their ideas in a plenary session. Notes from the breakout rooms and transcripts from the plenary session were analyzed through a participatory and iterative thematic analysis approach. We found that the working group participants identified two overarching themes that were critical for emerging women leaders to find success in global health leadership. First, the acquisition of individual essential skills is necessary to advance in their careers. Second, the institutional environments should be setup to encourage and enable women to enter and succeed in leadership roles. The participants also shared suggestions for improving women’s leadership opportunities such as including the use of virtual technologies to increase training and networking opportunities, intersectionality in mentorship and sponsorship, combatting impostor syndrome, and the importance of work-life balance. Investing in women and their leadership potential has the promise to improve health and wealth at the individual, institutional, and community levels. This manuscript offers lessons and proposes solutions for increasing women’s leadership through improving individual level essential skills and fostering environments in which women leaders can emerge and thrive.

Summary: We carried out a prospective study of consecutive patients who presented with chronic urinary retention over a period of 2 years in order to determine the safety and effectiveness of rapid and complete decompression of chronic urinary retention. A total of 22 patients met the inclusion criteria. Although slow decompression is thought to reduce complications, it harbours the disadvantages of impracticability, time and labour demands and an increased risk of infection. Post-obstructive diuresis, haematuria and hypotension are relatively frequent in rapid and complete decompression of chronic urinary retention. However, they are mild, transient and clinically insignificant. Rapid and complete decompression of the chronically obstructed urinary bladder not only saves time, it is safe and effective and should be adopted as the standard practice.

Networks are critical for leadership development, but not all networks and networking activities are created equally. Women and people of color face unique challenges accessing networks, many of which were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual platforms offer opportunities for global professionals to connect and can be better tailored to meet the needs of different groups. As part of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health annual meeting in 2021, we organized a networking session to provide a networking space for emerging women leaders in global health (i.e. trainees, early career professionals, and/or those transitioning to the field). We evaluated the virtual networking session to better understand participants’ perception of the event and its utility for professional growth and development. We distributed online surveys to participants immediately after the event and conducted a 3-month follow-up. Out of 225 participant, 24 responded to both surveys and their data was included in the analysis. We conducted descriptive quantitative analysis for multiple choice and Likert scale items; qualitative data was analyzed for themes. Participants represented 8 countries and a range of organizations. Participants appreciated the structure of the networking session; all participants agreed that they met someone from a different country and most indicated they had plans to collaborate with a new connection. When asked if the event strengthened their network and if they will keep in touch with new people, most participants strongly agreed or agreed in both surveys. However, after the follow-up, participants noted challenges in sustaining connections including lack of follow-up and misaligned expectations of networks. The virtual networking event brought together women in global health from diverse backgrounds. This study found that while networking events can be impactful in enhancing professional networks, ensuring sustained connections remains a challenge. This study also suggests that measures to increase the depth and meaningfulness of these connections in a virtual setting and enabling post-event collaboration can help networks become more inclusive and sustainable.

Investing in women leaders in global health catalyzes growth and positive outcomes for individuals and their communities, yet large gender disparities persist in leadership within the field due to several barriers. The use of digital tools facilitates cross-institutional and international collaborations to allow individuals or groups to create or share information, ideas, career interests, and other forms of expression via virtual communities. Digital tools can dramatically expand access to and the quantity and quality of opportunities for networking, mentoring, and collaboration to support women in their professional development. The objective of this paper is to document tangible examples of positive experiences, connections, or collaborations resulting from connecting with other participants in a Slack network. We aimed to evaluate this network to understand how to better build, model, and scale advantageous digital networks of women leaders in global health moving forward. Semi-structured interviews were conducted virtually with seven members of the Slack network from Africa and North America who volunteered to share their experiences. Transcripts of six of these interviews were analyzed for key points using thematic analysis to derive short vignettes from each interview. The findings of this study indicate that Slack is a highly beneficial tool for women in global health to use for facilitating job searches, mentoring opportunities, promoting project collaborations, and proposing programming and outreach ideas in a remote environment. We found distinct recommendations for utilizing this digital networking tool in a way that best supports and engages women in global health. It is important to spread awareness and ensure visibility of the network to recruit and maintain members, design the network in a way that inspires internal motivation, encourage consistent and meaningful engagement, send weekly emails, and maintain accessibility for a global membership base. The Slack network provides an engaging digital tool that facilitates communication, opportunities, and growth among women in global health. Digital tools such as Slack can help to increase opportunities for participants from low- and-middle-income countries to engage in the same networking and leadership opportunities as individuals from high-income countries. It remains critical to continue to build, advance, and scale advantageous networks like Slack to promote equity and accessibility among women leaders in the global north and south into the post-pandemic world.