Arabic version: وفاة رائدة صحة المرأة في بيرث مارغريت سميث عن 94 عاماً

According to ABC News, Perth obstetrician and women’s health advocate Dr Margaret Smith died on July 14, her 94th birthday. Smith, known as Margie, delivered about 6,000 babies during a career dedicated to improving women’s health.

Smith graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1956 as one of only four women in a class of more than 100 men. She was initially refused an obstetrics residency because she was female, before fellow students refused to take their own residencies unless she was offered a place.

After five years of specialist training in Edinburgh, where she won a gold medal in postgraduate examinations in 1963, Smith spent seven years in Papua New Guinea with her husband, surgeon Frank Smith. She delivered babies in the highlands and also worked as a physician and anaesthetist without specialist-team support.

Following the couple’s move to Perth, Smith worked at King Edward Memorial Hospital, in private practice and as a University of Western Australia lecturer. She founded Western Australia’s first menopause clinic in 1978 and was a founding member of the Australasian Menopause Society.

Smith was named WA Citizen of the Year in 1994 and appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1996 for service to medicine and women’s health care. She was inducted into the WA Women’s Hall of Fame in 2011. Family friend Julian Dowse described her work as “the Hippocratic Oath writ large.” She is survived by her twin sister Joan, nieces and nephews, and generations of women she assisted.