As part of continuing JesmondLocal‘s International Women’s Day celebrations, which have been running on Instagram over the last week, we are interviewing influential women in Jesmond along several key themes. Today JesmondLocal speaks to Dr. Wendy Taylor on being a doctor and women’s health.

Taylor is a consultant at Freeman Hospital, specialising in treating patients with breast cancer. She has lived in Newcastle upon Tyne for over 30 years, having been brought up in Bromley, London.

She spoke to JesmondLocal about global health issues for women, such as contraception and female genital mutilation, as well as her own personal experience of being working in the medical profession as a woman.

Working in oncology as a woman has always felt acceptable for Taylor, but she believes different avenues in the medical profession such as working in surgery may still have a male dominance or implicit preference for male surgeons.

Outside of her medical practice, Taylor has been a Liberal Democrat councillor for the Newcastle City Council ward of Dene and South Gosforth since 1988, and served as the council’s Executive Member for Enviornment, Sustainability & Transport from 2004 to 2011. 

She cites Baroness Shirley Williams, a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, as a woman who has inspired her over the years.

You can watch JesmondLocal’s interview with Taylor below: