WISENET Journal 35, July 1994, pp. 10-11.
Dr Adèle Green graduated with first class honours in medicine at the University of Queensland in 1976 (receiving the Jean and Joyce Stobo Memorial Prize for greatest proficiency among women students and the William Nathaniel Robertson Medal for most successful candidate in fifth and sixth years). She thereafter worked at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Brisbane and Cairns Base Hospital as Resident Medical Officer and as Medical Registrar at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane in 1979.
Adèle received a National Health and Medical Research Council (NH&MRC) Postgraduate Medical Research Scholarship to carry out research into the epidemiology of cutaneous melanoma in Queensland, and was granted a PhD in 1984 from the University of Queensland. This work gained national attention, with a Quantum programme devoted to her findings. With a NH&MRC Neil Hamilton Fairley fellowship, Adèle then carried out post-doctoral studies for an MSc at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and undertook further research in London, Oxford and Harvard Medical Schools.
On returning to Australia, Adèle joined the Queensland Institute of Medical Research where she is currently a Principal Research Fellow in the Epidemiology Unit, and an Associate Professor in the Tropical Health Programme, the University of Queensland. Her other current appointments include vicechairmanship of the Scientific Council, the International Agency for research on cancer in Lyon, France, and in Australia, membership of the NH&MRC Grants Committee and Regional Grants Interview Committees. She is also on the Research Advisory Committee of the National Centre for Environmental Toxicology.
Adèle's particular scientific contributions have been in the field of ultraviolet carcinogenesis, especially the refinement of concepts of the pathogenesis of melanoma; providing the first estimates of the true prevalence and incidence of skin cancer and actinic skin disease and the determinates in a Queensland population; and conducting the investigation of the long-term effects of daily sunscreen use, which is internationally unique. Other particular contributions are the investigations of ovarian carcinogenesis in Australian women, and of eye disease and dietary patterns in an Australian community.
Adèle's life is obviously very busy, but she has a major commitment to combining teaching and research through the supervision of doctoral students. At present she has five PhDs and two MSc students. She feels that although the number of women now entering the medical profession is high (over 50 percent of students in first year are females in recent years at the University of Queensland), very few of those persist into the upper professional levels, either in formal medical disciplines or in science. "The numbers of women at Associate Professor level are vanishingly small." This she considers of some concern.
Adèle does not feel she has ever been subject to negative discrimination because she is a woman. She feels that people are more than ready to accept someone on the quality of their work, and reward them for that. Indeed, she feels that women have special qualities that are particularly useful in areas which require lateral thinking and the melding of several strands of ideas together. She has found her female colleagues and students particularly good at absorbing new ideas. The problem of keeping women on a career path, and contributing their particular skills, is more complex than simple discrimination.