About Victoria Doudenkova
Victoria Doudenkova, BSc, MA is a doctoral candidate in Biomedical Sciences, Bioethics option, at the University of Montreal. Her interest in ethics, and more particularly in clinical ethics, was born during her studies in medical radiology in Switzerland, when she was brought into contact with the hospital environment thanks to the various internships carried out throughout her training. During her master's, she worked on the ethics of radiation protection, highlighting issues such as the duty to inform and informed consent with regard to the risk posed by ionizing radiation or the justification of the interventions prescribed in a context of growing overuse. She was also a research assistant for a project on ethics training in public health, while contributing concretely to it. For several years, she has been a teaching assistant for the ethics component of a course on the foundations of public health at the School of Public Health of the University of Montreal (ESPUM).
Her main research interest relates to women's health and the lack of awareness surrounding women's specific health conditions. She devotes her doctoral thesis to the study of the question of the autonomy of women affected by polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), from a perspective that takes into account the notion of improving their state of health as much as the use of necessary medical interventions. She was quickly made aware of the fact that for some of these women medical interventions, although beneficial for others, may prove to be limited. This prompted her to train in naturopathy and follow women affected not only by PCOS, but also by disorders such as endometriosis and uterine fibroids.
The organization offers support, information, and space for sharing to women affected by uterine fibroids in Quebec. It aims to promote the improvement of the management of this disease by strengthening the links between the community sphere and that of health.
It is within these activities that she finds an inexhaustible source of inspiration and motivation for her thesis, which pushes her to address questions that are as close as possible to the concerns and problems experienced by the community. It is therefore quite natural that she favors the narrative approach in research in order to reflect the richness of women's experiences and experiences, hoping to do her part in terms of raising awareness in the case of conditions such as PCOS.
