On International Women’s day, we bring you the first episode of a new feature:orthohub stories.

Pete Bates interviews Deborah Eastwood, President Elect of the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA).

Deborah talks about growing up, choosing surgery and her passage to becoming one of the most influential and indeed inspirational women in British and European orthopaedics.

We discuss yards of ale, how being a medical student and junior doctor has changed over the years, and how the job of being a surgical trainer has had to flex to accommodate.

Are medical graduates nowadays cleverer and better doctors than her generation were?

Has the template for being a great role-model changed and has ‘the clinical team’ been degraded?

We discuss leadership and what makes a bad leader!

The BOA gets a close-up inspection; we talk pretty frankly about inclusivity and what they’re doing about the white, male-dominated image that some of us have of our advocating body.

How do you instigate cultural change in an organisation like the BOA and is it effective at lobbying government on our behalf?

There’re tons of other little nick-nacks and words of wisdom, not to mention the ideal breakfast.