Joan Croll AO (b. 1928), formerly a breast physician and radiologist, is a conservation activist and vigorous writer of letters-to-the-editor. Born in Sydney, she studied medicine at the University of Sydney but did not practice until the age of 47, having been a full-time mother for thirteen years (a period of her life that she determinedly listed in her entry in Who's Who). From 1975 until her retirement in 1997 Croll was a persistent and effective pioneer in the field of breast cancer, promoting the introduction and acceptance of breast ultrasound and mammography as director of Medicheck and the Sydney Square Diagnostic Breast Clinic. In the 1990s, she helped to establish the National Breast Cancer Screening Program. Also an active conservationist, Croll's fight alongside thirteen other women known as 'Battlers for Kelly's Bush' to stymie a housing development in Sydney's Hunters Hill in the early 1970s led to the world’s first Green Ban and the birth of urban environmentalism. In 1996, Croll was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia for her services to medicine, particularly in the fields of mammography and ultrasound.
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