Dr Elizabeth Farrell is the director of the Jean Hailes Foundation for Women's Health, which she helped establish in 1992. The non-profit foundation provides important services for women's health through clinical practice, education and research.

She has also been head of the menopause unit at Monash Medical Centre in Clayton since 1986 and has held various lecturing and tutoring roles at Melbourne University and other national and international health organisations since 1980.

Dr Farrell said advances in treatments meant menopause was no longer a life sentence but could be a positive and rewarding time in a woman's life.

"I'm very concerned about the fact that there is negative information given to women but not always positive information. I think there has been a greater awareness of women's midlife health, and I think women are more likely to seek information about menopause. However, there has been a downturn in women accepting medical treatments for menopause management and sometimes that's been unfounded."

Dr Farrell said most women experienced only mild to moderate symptoms of menopause, many of which would clear up within two to five years.

She said there were a lot of misconceptions about menopause and many women thought they were going to have a bad experience whereas most found it was not a negative time in their lives.