Information about the career and work of
Dr Caroline de Costa

Caroline de Costa is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Director of the Clinical School at James Cook University School of Medicine, Cairns Campus in North Queensland, Australia.

Caroline was born and educated in Sydney. She has been a specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist for 31 years. She studied medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, in Dublin, and graduated MB BS (London University) and LRCP&SI in 1973. After completing residency in Port Moresby General Hospital, Papua-New Guinea, she returned to Ireland and undertook specialist training there and in the United Kingdom. In 1980 she returned to Port Moresby for a further 18 months before moving back to Sydney where she spent 17 years in private practice. In 1999 she moved to Cairns and took up her present appointment in 2004.

In her current practice Caroline is deeply involved in improving outcomes for indigenous women in the area of obstetrics and gynaecology. She is currently conducting research into possible interventions to reduce the incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome amongst the children of indigenous women in Far North Queensland. She also has an interest in caesarean section, including the history and social implications of this common operation as well as techniques and risks of the surgery. She has been active and successful in public movements to reform abortion law.

In her university role Caroline teaches the medical students of JCU in their fifth and sixth years as well as supervising honours and research students.

Caroline is also a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and the author of several textbooks. She is the mother of seven children.

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