Dear Medical Women,

President's report - Dr Desiree Yap
Happy 2009 and welcome to the inaugural AFMW e-newsletter! We plan for these updates to be quarterly and aim to keep you abreast of what is going on both for AFMA and MWIA, as well as disseminate information for States. Information, news, activities and web-articles will be presented succinctly - as we all have so much reading to get through these days... with links that can be followed if you wish to read more about the topic to hand.
 
At the fabulously successful MWIA Western Pacific Congress held in October in Melbourne, AFMW changed Presidents. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr Susie Close, the outgoing President, for all her work. Susie has been very involved with Womenspeak in particular, and will be continuing to keep tabs there.  Read more…

Join the AFMW Leadership Skills Database
AFMW encourages all Australian medical women to join the AFMW Leadership Skills Database, through which we aim to increase the strength of women's voices in public health policy development and service delivery. To read further details about the database please download the application form by clicking here.

AFMW Leadership Portal
Many of you will have noticed the recent AFMW website redevelopment which has been achieved as part of the Bridging Leadership Barriers Project. As part of the redevelopment AFMW has launched an online Leadership Portal for medical women. For to access resources and essays on topics such as mentoring, negotiation, writing for publications, developing political savvy and more visit the Leadership Portal here.

Medical Women's International Association Western Pacific Regional Congress October 17-19, 2008
Reports, abstracts, presentations, photos and summaries from the Congress are now online at the AFMW website. Registered users can access the abstracts and presentations through the MWIA page. If you are not yet a registered user you can register free online.

Developing a Women's Health Policy for Australia
The Australian Government has committed to developing a National Women's Health Policy which will emphasise prevention, health inequalities in our society, and the social determinants of those health inequalities. Community consultation will take place during 2009; if you are interested in taking part please join the AFMW Leadership Skills Database and stay tuned for more information!

AusAID Family Planning Guidelines
Did you know that across the world a mother dies every minute in childbirth or pregnancy related complications? Did you know that the All Parliamentary Group on Population and Development (PGDP) estimates that worldwide access to contraception and safe abortions would reduce maternal deaths by up to 35 per cent and child deaths by 20 per cent? Did you know that under the AusAid Family Planning Guidelines AusAID funded projects are banned from giving out even information about abortion, and no service  can be provided, even when it might save the life of a woman? Even information about what not to do in terms of accessing unsafe abortion is banned. Only some forms of contraception can be funded with Australian aid money. Australia and the US are the only countries who have such guidelines. Read more…

National Management Guidelines for Sexually Transmissible Infections 7th Edition
The Sexual Health Society of Victoria has launched these Guidelines which are edited by Dr David Bradford and authored by Sexual Health Physicians from around Australia. For more information click here.

AFMW affiliations
Did you know that AFMW is a member of the Australian Women’s Coalition and The WomenSpeak Network? Click on the links to visit the AFMW website and find out more about these organisations.

Additional recommended articles on the AFMW website are:
·     UNFPA State of World Population Report 2008: Culture, Gender and Human Rights
·     Women Physicians and Family Medicine Monograph/Literature Review 2008
·     Report on the Joint WHO/UNICEF/UNFPA Meeting on reducing maternal and newborn mortality
·     Gender Inequalities and Health
·     16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign
·     Email Etiquette Tips
·     The waiting room: the story of Dr Khulod Maarouf-Hassan
·     In Search of Balance: Medicine, Motherhood
·     HIV/AIDS: Did you know?
·     The Impact of Violence on Young People and their Relationships
·     The most recently provided news and updates from your state medical women's society are available online at: NSW, VIC, ACT and QLD.

If you would like to contribute information to the AFMW e-newsletter or to the AFMW website please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   or your state medical women's organisation - we'd love to hear from you.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Desiree Yap
President, AFMW