Australia Completes Audit of Medical Training Curriculums at 123 Institutions

A nationwide audit of curriculums at 123 institutions that train doctors, nurses and allied-health practitioners has finished final quality-assurance checks, the Health Department said. The audit covers more than 8,000 courses and will inform possible changes in how sex and gender differences are taught.

A separate review of textbooks and clinical guidelines found limited attention to these differences.

Graham, who led the audit, said many courses present material developed from male subjects as gender-neutral. She said students therefore assume the same diagnostic approach applies to all patients. A separate 2024 review of six textbooks used by Australian medical schools found each implied men and women present identical symptoms for the diseases examined.

Fifteen percent of 80 clinical-practice guidelines reviewed by Monash University contained no reference to sex or gender, and more than half did not consider gender in clinical recommendations.

Van Der Westhuizen described waking after appendix-cancer surgery to find her epidural line had dislodged. She said her doctor attributed her reported pain to a panic attack and offered Valium instead of additional anaesthesia, and she later received a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis linked to the episode.

Professor Sue Matthews, co-chair of a government inquiry into women's pain, said accounts of dismissed pain remain common despite earlier reforms. Work has begun on new pelvic-pain guidelines, an area previously lacking dedicated standards. Professor Mike McGuckin, interim dean at the University of Melbourne, said universities have embedded sex and gender differences in recent years.