Born: 4 February 1910, Australia
Died: 24 June 2002
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: NA
This biography has been shared from The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, published by the Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology, under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Lorna Lloyd-Green was one of the first female obstetricians and gynaecologists working in Melbourne in the first half of the twentieth century. She was a pioneering woman in Australian medicine. Lloyd-Green was an advocate of equal pay for equal work by females in the medical profession and encouraged training for medical women to give them the skills required when applying for senior positions. Late in life she changed career, becoming a music therapist at the Bethlehem Hospital, where she worked with dying patients.
Chronology
1933
Education – Bachelor of Medicine (MB) and Bachelor of Surgery (BS), University of Melbourne
1934 – 1935
Career position – Resident Medical Officer at the Melbourne Hospital (later known as the Royal Melbourne Hospital)
1935 – 1936
Career position – Resident Medical Officer at the Children’s Hospital, Melbourne
1936 – 1937
Career position – Resident Medical Officer at the Women’s Hospital, Melbourne (later known as the Royal Women’s Hospital)
1939 – 1941
Career position – Medical Superintendent at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, Melbourne
1945 – 1969
Career position – Honorary Gynaecologist at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, Melbourne
1948
Career position – President, Victorian Women’s Medical Society
1950 – 1954
Career position – Vice-President of the Australian Federation of Medical Women
1951 – 1952
Career position – President, Victorian Women Graduates Association
1956 – 1958
Career position – President, Australian Federation of University Women
1958 – 1968
Career position – Vice-President of the Medical Women’s International Association
1962 – 1965
Career position – Vice-President of the Australian Federation of Medical Women
1964 – 1965
Career position – Dean of the Clinical School at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, Melbourne
1968
Award – Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1968 – 1972
Career position – President, Medical Women’s International Association
1969
Career position – First woman Fellow of the Australian Medical Association (AMA)
1969 – 1985
Career position – Honorary Consultant at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, Melbourne
1979
Award – Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
1989 – c. 1999
Career position – Music Therapist at the Bethlehem Hospital, Victoria
The following is republished with permission from the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.
Dr Lorna Lloyd-Green had a distinguished career, in particular having a major role in the development of family planning services in Victoria.
From the time of her graduation from the University of Melbourne Dr Lloyd-Green had a distinguished medical career at hospitals, including the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Royal Children’s Hospital and the Royal Women’s Hospital, but most notably the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital. There she was Medical Superintendent (1939-41), Honorary Gynaecologist (1945-69), Dean of the Clinical School (1964-65), and Honorary Consultant (1969-85).
Her status in her profession can be measured in part by the fact that she was the first woman to be a fellow of the Australian Medical Association (1969) and is a Fellow of both the Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Obstetricians. During this long and busy period of active practice Lorna found time to participate in a major way in organisations that were fighting to advance the social health and the educational and professional status of women, both in medicine and in the wider community.
In advancing the educational and professional status of women, she served as President of the Victorian Women Graduates Association (1951-52) and then as President of the Victorian Womens’ Medical Society in 1948; Vice-President of the Australian Federation of Medical Women (1950-54 and 1962-65); Vice-President of the Medical Women’s International Association (1958-68) and President (1962-65), being made a Member of Honour of that organisation in 1972. In 1970 she chaired the Congress of the Medical Women’s International Association held in Melbourne.
Lorna’s achievements set a wonderful example of the way in which women can adapt their lives and continue to serve the community after retirement from their initial career. Throughout her medical practice Lorna maintained her skills as a pianist; in 1989 she commenced a new role as Music Therapist at the Bethlehem Hospital.
In that year she was scheduled to speak at the Annual Dinner of the Australian Federation of University Women – Victoria on ‘Music as Therapy for the Terminally-ill’. On the morning of that occasion she had to have exploratory surgery on her throat. It was assumed she would have to cancel her engagement for the Dinner. But Lorna is a remarkably determined and courageous woman. She attended the Dinner and fascinated and inspired her audience with an account of how her work is capable of extending the boundaries of medical practice, bringing a measure of relief and positive acceptance to patients who are at the stage when medicine’s power to cure is exhausted.
Lorna’s long history of service has made a difference in the lives of many Victorians.