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Natalie Urwyler is an anesthetist and emergency doctor at the Valais Hospital. She completed her medical studies at the University of Bern and completed her training in anesthesia and emergency medicine at the Valais Hospital and the University Hospital of Bern. In 2012/2011 she successfully completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Stanford University in California, USA.

At the age of 40 she completed her habilitation in anesthesiology. She is the second woman in the history of the University of Bern to achieve this.

At the same time she also became a mother. Her motherhood led to her being unfairly dismissed by her employer and the subsequent ruin of her promising career. She challenged this dismissal in court and received a precedent ruling in 2018. The court ordered her reinstatement. Unfortunately, despite being legally valid, this was not implemented by her employer.

 

She has been working at the Valais Hospital since 2015 and has been working in her specialty of anesthesia in the French-speaking part of the Valais Hospital since 2019. Due to the bitter experience of losing her career because of her gender, she actively advocates for fairer conditions in professional and private life in our society. In 2023 she will be awarded the Doron Prize from the “Swiss Foundation for the Doron Prize” for her tireless efforts in the fight against discrimination against women in the workplace.

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