AFMW Membership

Medical women can join AFMW directly, or through joining their affiliated state medical women’s society. AFMW encourages Rural, regional and remote medical women to join AFMW directly.

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:

QLD
NSW
ACT & REGION
VIC

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

free

Student membership is open to female medical students.
Full membership benefits

$ 50 per year

Open to women who are legally qualified and registered medical practitioners registered in Australia.
Retired Doctors are welcome to join.

free

ACT, NSW, Qld and Victoria members requesting AFMW website access
rural, regional and remote medical women

With an AFMW membership, experience:

Career Development

Enjoy leadership development, networking & mentoring opportunities. Plus join the AFMW leadership skills database.

Professional Contribution

Become actively involved in key issues surrounding the health and wellbeing of women and children, in Australia and globally.

MWIA Membership

Automatic membership of the Medical Women’s International Association, an organisation with United Nations representation.

Special Event Access

Receive invitations to access and attend educational and social events.

Member Only Resources

Access to our members only discussion forum, directory, special updates and e-newsletters.

Interested in being involved?

We welcome new members and participation in AMFW activities.