Dr Lorna Lloyd-Green OBE CBE

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.