Joan Janet Brown Refshauge (3 December 1906 25 July 1979) was a

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

based

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

medical practitioner, administrator, and schoolteacher. In 1964, she was honored with the

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

and the Cilento Medal.

Early life and education

Refshauge was born in

Armadale, Victoria Armadale is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 7 km south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne City Centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Stonnington Local government areas of Victoria, ...

, the eldest of five siblings. One of her brothers was Major General Sir William Dudley Refshauge (1913–2009). She attended

University High School University High School may refer to: Australia * University High School, Melbourne, Victoria Canada * University Hill Secondary School, Vancouver, British Columbia United States Arizona * University High School (Tolleson) * University High Sc ...

, Presbyterian Ladies' College, and the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

(BSc, 1928; MSc, 1929; MB/B.S., 1939).ADB Online biography of Dr Joan Refshauge
/ref> She was a math teacher from 1930 to 1935, after which she became a physician.

Career

Refshauge was a resident at the

Alfred Hospital The Alfred Hospital, (also known as The Alfred or Alfred Hospital) is a leading tertiary hospital in Melbourne, Victoria. It is the second oldest hospital in Victoria after Melbourne Hospital which is still operating on its original site. The ...

and later the

Queen Victoria Hospital The Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH), located in East Grinstead, West Sussex, England is the specialist reconstructive surgery centre for the south east of England, and also provides services at clinics across the region. It has become world-famo ...

. She moved to the Chronic and Incurable Diseases Hospital while she was pregnant, but left before she gave birth to her son. She joined the Army Medical Corps during World War II, and was responsible for the health of women in the army in the Melbourne area. She was employed as a medical officer in the Public Health department of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea following the war.

New Guinea

Refshauge joined her husband in

Port Moresby (; Tok Pisin: ''Pot Mosbi''), also referred to as Pom City or simply Moresby, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea. It is one of the largest cities in the southwestern Pacific (along with Jayapura) outside of Australia and New ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, in 1947. As a female physician, she was allowed to deal only with maternal and children's issues. After her divorce in 1948, her son joined her there, and she ran the Maternal and Child Health Services. She recruited staff, organised the nurses' training, and oversaw school health-services. During this time she established 21 central clinics, 528 village clinics, and 541 centres visited by mobile patrols in the ANGAU Territory, before her resignation in 1963, when she joined the

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

Department of Health, and was named deputy-director of maternal and child welfare in 1968. She retired five years later in 1973.

Personal life

On 19 May 1937, she married Max Bergin, a surveyor with the

ANGAU The Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) was a civil administration of Territory of Papua and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea formed on 21 March 1942 during World War II. The civil administration of both Papua and the Mand ...

. Their son (her only child), Rupert Bergin, was born in 1942. Max and Joan Bergin divorced in 1948. Refshauge died on 25 July 1979, aged 72, from undisclosed causes at Auchenflower, Brisbane,

. She was survived by her son, Rupert Bergin.

Awards and honours

* 1964,

* 1964
Cilento Medal
"in honour of ... excellent work for maternal and child health in Papua-New Guinea"

Selected works

* C. Bell (editor), ''The Diseases and Health Services of Papua New Guinea'' (Port Moresby, 1973) * L. M. Hellstedt (editor), ''Women Physicians of the World'' (Washington, 1978) * E. Kettle, ''That They Might Live'' (privately published, Sydney, 1979) * J. Byford, ''Dealing with Death, Beginning with Birth: Women's Health and Childbirth on Misima Island, Papua New Guinea'' (Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University, 1999)

References

External links

''Journal of Tropical Pediatrics'' (registration required to view entire PDF document)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Refshauge, Joan 1906 births 1979 deaths Australian healthcare managers Australian schoolteachers Australian Officers of the Order of the British Empire Medical doctors from Melbourne University of Sydney alumni 20th-century Australian women medical doctors Australian expatriates in Papua New Guinea Australian military doctors 20th-century Australian medical doctors People from Armadale, Victoria