AFMW Membership
PLEASE NOTETo become an AMFW member, please first join the affiliated state or territory medical women’s society. Membership of your state or territory medical women’s society confers automatic membership to the Australian Federation of Medical Women (AFMW).
About AFMW Membership
Member Benefits
- Leadership development, networking and mentoring opportunities
- The opportunity to become actively involved in key issues surrounding the health and wellbeing of women and children, in Australia and globally
- Automatic membership of the Medical Women’s International Association, an organisation with United Nations representation
- Access to attend educational and social events
- Access to or the opportunity to join the AFMW leadership skills database and offer your skills and expertise in areas that interest you
- Access to special updates and e-newsletters from AFMW and MWIA
Eligibility
Medical women can join AFMW directly, or through joining their affiliated state medical women’s society (see below). Full membership is open to registered female medical practitioners of Australia. Associate membership includes non-registered female medical practitioners and medical students.
HAVE YOU JOINED YOUR STATE MEDICAL WOMEN’S SOCIETY?
To join your state Medical Women’s Society please select your state below and follow the link:
Rural, regional and remote medical women
We are keen to further extend our membership and representation of rural, regional and remote Australian medical women. Our state based organisations have noted limitations in their ability to encompass these valuable medical practitioners as many of the state activities focus around social networks or events in metropolitan areas.
AFMW aims to take practical steps to address issues facing our country colleagues. We know that the issues faced by regional, rural and remote female practitioners are different to their metropolitan counterparts, but there are common themes relevant to both groups.
The issues we have identified for non-metropolitan medical women include:
Networking
Rural practitioners crave social support and a chance to debrief with other colleagues, as they are not able to network with colleagues on a regular basis. A national female network offers support and debriefing opportunities as well as mentoring and distribution of information for interested practitioners and students.
Training
Females often have difficulties with training including timing, content and presentation of CME and other educational programs. Training programs need to be more responsive to the needs of female doctors with children in relocating to or requiring training in rural or remote areas.
Information
Rural females are often less informed regarding extra assistance such as relocation and training assistance.
Personal Safety
Females in rural communities encounter issues with personal safety – house calls to new clients out of town become a balance between delivery of service and personal risk. Practice and personal safety requires awareness and vigilance.
Support and Stresses of Workplace
As females and males have different ways of dealing with stress, there needs to be gender specific support and mental health programs.
Remuneration
Due to the fact that females spend more time per appointment with their patients, females experience less remuneration per hour. In rural regions where bookings are full for periods in advance, there is less time with shorter appointments for acute problems.
Child Care
Rural practitioners generally have more on-call time and need child care facilities available almost 24hrs a day. Access to child care in the rural setting is a barrier for females to rural practice: practitioners are separated from their extended families and have difficulties keeping their family issues separate from the residents of the community.
Leadership
The majority of decisions made on behalf of female rural GPs is done with an inherent gender imbalance. The decisions made can only hope to represent the opinions of the demographic of the people making the decisions. Females need appropriate representation in order for decisions to be relevant to their issues.
Maternity Leave
Leave when having a family is almost an impossibility in rural practice. This often hinders the retention of female GPs during their child bearing years.
AFMW Membership Types
STUDENT
AFMW at large
free
-
Student membership is open to female medical students.
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Full membership benefits
-
Join
Membership expires on June 30, each year.
DOCTOR
AFMW at large
$
50
per year
-
Open to women who are legally qualified & registered medical practitioners registered in Australia and where there is no state Medical Women’s Society
-
Retired Doctors are welcome
Join
Membership expires on June 30, each year.
AFFILIATE
Members
free
-
ACT, NSW, Qld & VIC members requesting AFMW website access
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Rural, regional and remote medical women
-
Join
Requires state affiliate membership.
