 32nd Annual Meeting Luncheon Was Truly Inspirational, Sensational & Conversational
The annual WDS luncheon on February 5, 2007 was a huge success. The day was full of accomplishments, friendships, and a fabulous speaker.
The room at the Grand Hyatt held over 60 tables set with beautiful pink and white roses. Tables of 8-10 attendees were arranged and table facilitators were encouraged to get the groups acquainted. Two large projection screens ran with highlights of our members over the past year. Out-going president Dr. Elizabeth McBurney opened the event by welcoming everyone and introducing a video montage of media clips that WDS members had been involved with in 2006. The accomplishments of Dr. Suzanne Connelly and her Task force for “Play Safe in the Sun” were prominently featured.
 Brittany Lietz, Miss Maryland 2006, was present to lend her support to the WDS. At age 20, she was diagnosed with melanoma after years of tanning bed use. She made melanoma awareness her platform issue for the Miss America contest and it continues to be a large part of her public service work. She has partnered with the AAD to get the word out about the need for skin checks and about the dangers of tanning beds (http://www.aad.org/public/News/NewsReleases/PSA.htm).
The 2007 annual awards were given to:
The brief business meeting spot-lighted many of the important WDS events over the past year. Over 34 resident mentorships were granted, special awards to Tulane University residents were created to help relocate them after Hurricane Katrina, and many networking events were held around the country to introduce WDS members. The various WDS committees were applauded for jobs well done.
Dr. McBurney then passed the gavel to our new 2007-2008 president, Dr. Mary Lupo. As Dr. Lupo accepted the challenge ahead of her, she encouraged other members to, “take their energy and enthusiasm and harness it.” She urged members to become active in WDS projects, as she herself had done many years ago. She also thanked everyone for their support of the WDS and its initiatives. Specifically, she thanked many of the corporate sponsors who generously helped fund the day’s event.
The highlight of the afternoon was listening to the invited keynote speaker, Dr. Deborah Tannen. Dr. Tannen is a linguist from Georgetown University who has written extensively on how communication styles define relationships. Her most well-known book, You Just Don't Understand, was published in 1990 and remained on the New York Times best seller list for nearly four years. Her most recent book, You’re Wearing That: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation, takes on the often volatile and passionate interactions in the mother-daughter relationship. Many of the mother-daughter pairs in the room were recognized before Dr. Tannen began, and the speaker’s message rang true for many in the room.
Dr. Tannen spoke in a casual style, engaging with the audience while hardly glancing at her notes. She talked about the mother-daughter relationship as one that is at once extremely rewarding and yet often fraught with tension. Through her research on language, she has found these interactions to be, “both the best and worst of all conversations.”
 “We look at each-other as a measure by which we measure ourselves,” explained Tannen. Perhaps that is why mothers and daughters are often so critical of each other. Through her research, Dr. Tannen found that mothers and daughters were particularly sensitive to comments on what she calls the “Big 3”: hair, clothes, and weight. Citing examples from her own interactions with her mother, Dr. Tannen explained that what one person may intend as a helpful comment is often interpreted by the other as a criticism. “Do you like your hair that long?” asks the mother, as her daughter promptly gets annoyed. Women tend to derive meaning from all of their preceding conversations, thus making this bland comment seem quite harsh assuming it to be a criticism of her hair.
Women also tend to judge “closeness” by the amount of talking that they do. For example, to little girls growing up, a best friend was the person you shared your secrets with. Although talking between mother and daughters can help to keep them close, these conversations also bring up the opportunity to more often “say the wrong thing.”
Dr. Tannen concluded by challenging the audience to cherish this unique relationship and to help find the, “right balance between closeness and intrusion.” As she reminded us, “The word bond has a double meaning... (we want to encourage) closeness but without bond-age.” She recommended that mothers and daughters try to:
- Remind ourselves how valuable this relationship is
- Remind ourselves to bite our tongues
- Reframe our way of reacting to the others comments
This is a relationship that is Tannen thinks is worth the effort. As she said, “Who else is going to care about the color of my socks?”
When I asked Dr. Tannen why she agreed to speak with our group that day, she replied, “Anytime I have a chance to talk to a group of accomplished women like this, it is truly an honor.” And, she added, Dr. Sandra Reed is her dermatologist and she would do anything for her!
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