Dorothy Shaw is the WHRI’s 2019 recipient of the Career Contributions to Women’s Health Award

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WHRI

Dr. Shaw has a long list of accolades. Some highlights include: her being the inaugural chair of the FIGO Committee for Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Rights from 2000-2003; being the first woman President of FIGO; while president-elect of the society for obstetricians and gynaecologists of Canada in 1991, Dr. Shaw lobbied Senate to remove abortion from the Criminal code of Canada.

Dr. Shaw has been a spokesperson for the Partnership for Maternal Newborn Child Health and has a longstanding history of engagement in civil society advocacy related to policy in global Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child Health. She was the inaugural chair of the Canadian Network for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health from 2010-2014 and currently serves as Treasurer of what is now the Canadian Partnership for Women’s and Children’s Health. She is engaged in Canadian and global working groups on maternal and perinatal mortality.

In the last few years leading to her retirement, she was awarded the Christopher Tietze Humanitarianism Award by the National Abortion Federation as its highest distinction, honoring significant, life-time contributions in the field of abortion service delivery or policy.  Later that year, she also received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.  In 2015, she was the recipient of two medical leadership life-time achievement awards:  the Chris Carruthers Excellence in Medical Leadership Award from the Canadian Society of Physician Executives and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Distinguished Service Award.

In July 2016, Dr. Shaw was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada by Governor General David Johnston, for her work as an advocate for women’s health and reproductive rights.

Dr. Shaw has been heard time and time again calling for us to uphold the standards of woman-centered care, which means that judgement and stereotyping no longer have a place, that women are believed, and that their concerns are taken seriously. Thanks to Dr. Shaw’s voice and her actions, we have moved closer to achieving that desirable goal.

The Women’s Health Research Institute would like to acknowledge that we are uninvited guests on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lo, and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-waututh) Nations.

As a provincial research institute committed to improving the health outcomes of women, including those across the 2SLGBTQIA+ spectrum, we recognize our responsibility in the collective effort towards establishing culturally safe health care systems and services that address health inequities among Indigenous peoples, especially Indigenous women, girls, and Two-spirit peoples.

We encourage all people involved in research to read both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action and the In Plain Sight Report, and reflect on ways we can incorporate the recommendations into our work. As we gather in spaces together, we encourage you to reflect on your positionality on these lands and your personal commitments to reconciliation.

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