Welcome all to 2010! I hope you have all enjoyed a happy, safe and fulfilling Festive Season and that the next year is a good one for you. AFMW was busy in 2009 and our busy schedule culminated in the AGM which we shared with the Victorian Medical Women’s Society. We were privileged to have as our Constance Stone Speaker Dr. Sally Cockburn (Dr. Feelgood) and who left us all inspired after her riveting and passionate talk.

The AFMW AGM reports for 2009 are available on our website. We have endeavoured this year to ensure you are aware of all AFMW has been doing for you, as well as what the State Societies are up to. Given our size and resources, we are making a considerable contribution to issues affecting medical professionals – in particular women doctors – and issues pertaining to the health of women and children. A summary of our activities is listed below.

2009 AFMW Activities:

–    Bridging Leadership Barriers Grant
–    Inactive State buddy system
–    Representation, Affiliation and Submissions
–    Concerns:
–    Trainee Harassment
–    Workforce ‘crisis’ attitudes blaming ‘feminisation’ of the workforce
–    Communication with membership
–    Bimonthly Council meetings (minutes available)
–    Correspondence management (the Secretariat deals with up to 30 emails per day)
–    Focus on good governance
–    Council Strategic Planning Workshop May 2, 2009
–    Website expansion and development
–    Focus on developing Newsletter content

Represented at and submissions made to

–    National Women’s Health Policy Consultation Forum 27.10.09 (AFMW)
–    Dept. Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Office for Women Review of Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace (via AWC)
–    Advocacy over the issue of the AusAID Family Planning Guidelines (including correspondence to the Prime Minister) (successful campaign!)
–    Endorsed the Womenspeak National Human Rights Consultation : Final Submission

Project Reports are available on:

–    Bridging Leadership Barriers
–    AFMW Leadership Skills Database
–    Fiji Village Project

Invitations to but as yet no resources to be involved with:

–    East Timor elective/work options for Medical Students/Young Doctors and perhaps other contributions
–    Supporting the running of an Afghan Clinic via Malalai Joya
–    Supporting Medical Women and other PNG projects
–    AusAID Youth Ambassador and Development Partnerships

Volunteers for these projects are welcome. Please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

AFMW President Activities/ Attendance

–    2009-10 Women’s Budget launch (Report available)
–    QMWS General Meeting
–    ACT General Meeting
–    Two meetings with Libby Lloyd AM, Chair National Council to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children.
–    Teleconference meeting Jennifer Spoor, Researcher in the School of Psychology at The University Queensland regarding research examining issues related to gender diversity and women's advancement in the workplace.  (and looking for funding: Australian Research Council)
–    AWHN AGM (teleconference – report available)
–    Other issues examined:
–    Harrassment within Colleges
–    Industrial issues for doctors in training, particularly female
–    Relationship with AMSA

AFMW committee members have attended

–    UNIFEM Workshop (D. Colville report available)
–    Yajilarra Documentary, Parliament House 18 Aug (M Cross report available)
–    AWC Advocacy Workshops
–    1 Million Women Campaign Women in Climate Change, a national forum series.

Students were put in touch with

–    The Lancet Journal – request for medical student input

Doctor Assisted Dying: What is the policy of medical women?

Prepared by Dr Pat Scrivenor

All medical women, either professionally or personally, have met patients with incurable terminal illness, for whom optimal palliative care has failed to provide adequate relief.

Such patients occasionally express a wish for assistance to provide an easier death. We medically interfere in the natural order of life from conception until death. However we are legally prevented from helping at this time. Some doctors feel ethically unable to prescribe a lethal drug and this must be respected.

Legislation allowing carefully restricted doctor assisted dying is supported by
The Doctors Reform Society [1]
The Australian Nursing Federation [2]
The American Medical Women's Association [3]
and 80% of the Australian population [4]

The operation of such a law over 10 years has been carefully audited [5]. No abuse or indeed excessive use has been found.

The Federal Council of the AMA remains opposed although it has not been put to members. However in 2002 they passed the following motion-
"The AMA supports doctors whose primary intent is to relieve the suffering and distress of terminally ill patients, in accordance with the patient's wishes and interests,even though a foreseen secondary consequence is the hastening of death."[6]

Suggested AFMW Policy

1    All patients should be fully informed about their condition, treatment options and expected outcome
2    Optimal palliative care should be available to all patients
3    Patient’s wishes should be respected.
4     We support the consideration of law reform in this area. Models such as that in Oregon, which allows but does not mandate doctors to prescribe lethal medication to hasten the death of cogent patients suffering incurable terminal illness who request such help.

Outcomes for 2010: AFMW Endorsement of a Policy

•    We have set up a discussion board. Email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you wish to join in the debate
•    Will circulate where the debate is up to in our AFMW newsletters.
•    Member feedback to their State committees is encouraged so as the AFMW Council can ultimately endorse a policy.

Other Reports

The Australian Women's Coalition (AWC) is one of the four national women's Alliances funded by the Federal Office for Women. Formed in 2002 and incorporated in 2004, AWC is today a coalition of nineteen national women's organisations with equal voting and participation rights. The AWC's mission is to work collaboratively to advance the status of women by: increasing communication within the women’s sector; clearly identifying the needs of women represented by the partners of the coalition; initiating policies, programs and partnerships to address these needs; and advocating on women’s issues to government and the community.
AWC Annual Report for 2009 draws together the key highlights. The major projects AWC has undertaken in 2009 can be summarised under the following key themes:
• Women at work
• Consultation, networking and advocacy
• Out-reach to marginalised groups, including young offenders
• Inter-cultural and inter-faith bridge-building
• Women’s health reform

OfW - National Rural Women’s Coalition

is a collaborative national voice for women living in rural, regional and remote Australia. Established in 2002, we seek to ensure better social and economic outcomes for women in our rural townships and on farms.
The objectives of the NRWC are to:
–    Represent the diverse views of women in rural, regional and remote Australia;
–    Provide advice to the Australian Government on policy issues relevant to the views and circumstances of rural women; and
–    Contribute to building a positive profile of rural women, their achievements and issues.
–    Issues of special interest to the NRWC are health, drought policy, family violence, transport and cross-cultural awareness between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women and their communities
–    We are not currently represented but we hope to re-affiliate in 2010 with Dr Marjorie Cross as our representative

OfW - WomenSpeak

•    The WomenSpeak Network is one of four non government National Women's Secretariats funded by the Commonwealth Office for Women to act as a conduit for the exchange of information between the Government and the women's sector and provide representative advice on policy issues affecting women.
•    The WomenSpeak Network provides the Federal Office for Women with significant input on issues affecting women in Australia, including childcare, women's health, women's leadership, young women, the role of men and boys in gender equity, and violence against women.
•    The WomenSpeak Network currently includes 37 mostly national women's organisations. We also include national organisations with a specific focus on the impacts on women of policy and service delivery and where there is no national organisation in an area state based organisations or expert individuals.

PBAC – Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee

Dr C Hutton of Victoria was endorsed by both the AMA & AFMW as our nominee to the PBAC. The outcome is pending.