Dr Lawton trained at Otago medical school and is a director of the Wellington Menopause Clinic and a senior research fellow in women’s health at the Wellington School of Medicine. She is President-elect of the Australasian Menopause Society which is an organisation of 700 health professionals interested in menopause.

Not only the author of the web site book www.menopausetoday.com,
Dr Lawton is also

• A member of New Zealand guidelines committee on HRT
• Fellow of the Royal New Zealand College of Practitioners
• Chair of the Diabetes Research Strategy committee
• Member of the NZ Cancer Control Council
• Member of the Women’s International Study of Long Duration Oestrogen – writing committee and past member of international working committee of WISDOM.
• Advisory trustee for Women’s Heath Research New Zealand: 2005 This is a charitable group recently formed under the umbrella of the University of Otago Trust. Patron Dame Silvia Cartwright.

Previously she was a general practitioner in Newtown Wellington for 15 years and a member of the National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human reproduction.

Dr Lawton was made an Officer of the New Zealand order of Merit by the Queen in2004 for her services to women’s health.

Dr Jill Shepherd has been a General Practitioner in Wellington, New Zealand for over 20 years.  She has wide interests in women’s health from fertility to menopause.  She is a co-founder of the Wellington Menopause Clinic, started in 1994.  She is on the current Scientific Organising Committee for the 2005 Brisbane Australasian Menopause Society conference and is involved in organising the Wellington conference in 2006.