Professional Profile

When people ask me what work I do, my  answer is simple: “I am a doctor.”When they ask what kind of doctor, my answer is a little more complicated: “ I am a Urogynaecologist.” The response is typically: ” a Uro….  what?”. So I explain that: “I look after women who suffer from bladder problems such as urinary incontinence or women who have prolapse of their uterus or vagina”.

A lot of women are surprised that a field of medicine (Urogynaecology) dedicated solely to treating women with pelvic floor disorders exists. Many women are even more surprised to learn that more than one million Australian women suffer from these problems. Many women are unaware of how common pelvic floor disorders are and this is mainly because it’s not something that people like to talk about. Urinary incontinence and prolapse can be embarrassing and many women (and even some doctors) don’t know that there are effective treatments for these problems.

I decided to become a Urogynaecologist because I found this area of medicine to be one of the most rewarding areas I encountered during my postgraduate training. I discovered how the lives of women suffering with pelvic floor problems can be changed by non-surgical treatments or minimally-invasive surgical procedures. I enjoy the different clinical challenges that each woman I see brings to my practice, and developing a plan of treatment that will make their life more enjoyable.

I work at the Epworth Freemasons’ new Grey Street Building in East Melbourne where I am also Director of the Pelvic Floor Centre of Excellence at Epworth. I am an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne Medical School. From 2002 until 2017 I was head of the Urogynaecology  and Gynaecology 3 Units at the Women’s Hospital, Parkville. When I’m not working as a Urogynaecologist, I like to spend time with my family and try to keep fit by walking to work, fitness training, gardening and walking my dogs (Claude and Hazel).