Professor Lindy Willmott

Biography

Lindy Willmott is a Professor of Law in the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at the Faculty of Business and Law, Queensland University of Technology. Professor Willmott is an international expert in end-of-life law, with particular expertise in voluntary assisted dying (VAD).

Professor Willmott graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce and first class honours in Law from the University of Queensland, before obtaining a Master of Laws from Cambridge. She completed her PhD at QUT investigating advance directives and the refusal of life-sustaining treatment. Professor Willmott joined the QUT Law Faculty in 1986 and, in 2013, established the Australian Centre for Health Law research along with colleague Professor Ben White. She was a foundation director of the Centre for six years (2013-2018), and currently co-leads the End-of-Life program within the Centre.

Professor Willmott has been part of interdisciplinary teams undertaking research into health law, particularly end-of-life decision-making, that have been awarded more than $68 million in research funding. She has published extensively in the field of health law, with more than 230 publications spanning the disciplines of law, medicine, bioethics, social science and psychology (including 12 books, 44 book chapters, and more than 146 refereed journal articles). She is an editor of two leading health law texts: Health Law in Australia (2023, 4th ed, Thomson) and International Perspectives on End-of-Life Law Reform: Politics, Persuasion and Persistence (2021, Cambridge University Press).

Professor Willmott’s research has been integral to VAD law reform, policy and practice across Australia, particularly in Queensland, and has highlighted the importance of evidence-based law reform. Her empirical research evaluating the operation of VAD in earlier Australian states (such as Victoria) has been highly influential in informing innovations to VAD regulatory systems across Australian states. Professor Willmott’s work has been adopted by parliaments, courts and tribunals, law reform commissions, universities, hospitals, and health departments across Australia.

Professor Willmott is committed to translating her research to develop evidence-based training, education, and resources for undergraduate and postgraduate students, clinical audiences, and the wider community. She has taught health law in both undergraduate and postgraduate programs and has supervised more than 10 PhD students to completion (with a further 6 current PhD supervisions). Professor Willmott has been engaged by the Victorian, Western Australian, and Queensland state governments to design mandatory VAD training programs (funded by these State Governments) for doctors, nurse practitioners, and registered nurses participating in providing VAD, as well as a healthcare worker education module for all healthcare workers interested in learning more about VAD in Queensland. She has also co-established clinical training and resources for clinicians in the wider end-of-life care context, including End of Life Law for Clinicians, which has been demonstrated to have improved clinician confidence in their understanding of end-of-life law. She also contributes to the Commonwealth Government-funded End of Life Directions for Aged Care project, and co-authors the End of Life Law in Australia website which aims to provide accessible information to patients, families, health practitioners, lawyers, the media, policymakers, and the broader community. As part of her commitment to the translation and dissemination of research, Professor Willmott has recently co-authored several research briefings and a consumer brochure highlighting key findings of VAD research.

Professor Willmott has held several positions in the wider community. Professor Willmott sat on the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal for 6 years, and has been a member of the Queensland Law Reform Commission in both a full-time and part-time capacity. She was also a board member of Palliative Care Australia for 7 years (2013-2020). Most recently, she was appointed to the Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board, the peak oversight body for VAD in Queensland.

A list of Professor Willmott’s publications and other outputs is available here: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Willmott,_Lindy.html

Keywords

• Health law
• Voluntary assisted dying and euthanasia
• End-of-life decision-making
• Withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining medical treatment
• Advance directives
• Advance care planning
• Palliative care
• Regulation of medical decision-making
• Socio-legal research into medical decision-making
• Law reform
• Medical law
• Abortion

Major External Competitive Grants

• Louise Keogh, Lindy Willmott and Julian Savulescu, ‘Reducing the harms associated with conscientious objection to abortion’, 2021-2025, ARC Discovery Project
• Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Cheryl Tilse and Jill Wilson, ‘Enhancing community knowledge and engagement with law at the end of life’ 2014-2017, ARC Linkage Project
• Lindy Willmott, Ben White, Cynthia Gallois, Malcolm Parker, Nicholas Graves, Sarah Winch, ‘Futile Treatment at the End of Life: Legal, Policy, Sociological and Economic Perspectives’, 2012-2014, ARC Linkage Project
• Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Colleen Cartwright, Malcolm Parker and Gail Williams, ‘Withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining medical treatment from adults who lack capacity: The role of law in medical practice’, 2009–2012, ARC Linkage Project
• Lindy Willmott and Ben White, ‘Review of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2019 – Consultations and Background Paper’, 2023-2024, Western Australian Government, Department of Health
• Lindy Willmott and Ben White, ‘Development of the Western Australian voluntary assisted dying training renewal module’, 2023-2024, Western Australian Government, Department of Health
• Review of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act WA (2019) (WA) (Consultations and Background Paper), 2023-2024, Western Australian Government, Department of Health
• Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Patsy Yates, Shih-Ning Then, Katrine Del Villar and Eliana Close, ‘End of Life Law for Clinicians’, re-funded 2023-2026, Commonwealth Government, Department of Health
• Consortium of QUT (overall project lead: Professor Patsy Yates), Flinders University (lead: Professor Jennifer Tieman), University of Technology, Sydney (lead: Professor Deborah Parker), Palliative Care Australia, Aged and Community Care Providers Association, Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association and Catholic Health Australia, ‘End of Life Directions for Aged Care’, re-funded 2023-2026, Commonwealth Government, Department of Health
• Lindy Willmott and Ben White, Physician Reported Personal Preferences for End-of-life Decisions in Europe, North America and Australia, 2022, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
• Lindy Willmott, Ben White and Patsy Yates, ‘Development of a voluntary assisted dying training module for healthcare workers’, 2022, Queensland Government, Department of Health
• Lindy Willmott, Ben White and Patsy Yates, ‘Development of Voluntary Assisted Dying for Medical and Nurse Practitioners’, 2022-2024, Queensland Government, Department of Health
• Dr Jessica Young, Dr Jeanne Snelling, Ms Leanne Manson, Dr Richard Egan, Dr Janine Winters, Professor Ben White, Professor Lindy Willmott, Dr Gary Cheung, Dr Jackie Robinson, Dr Te Hurinui Karaka-Clarke, ‘A new research agenda to support safe and accessible assisted dying in Aotearoa’, 2022, Health Research Council of New Zealand
• Dr Jayne Hewitt, Dr Nemat Alsaba, Prof Andrea Marshall, Dr Katya May, Dr Greg Comadira, Prof Lindy Willmott, Prof Ben White, Emeritus Professor Colleen Cartwright, Dr Kerina Denny, Dr Thomas Torpie and Ms Lucy Trip, ‘Exploring end-of-life decision-making in the Emergency Department and Intensive Care Unit: What do clinicians know about the law, and how is it applied?’, 2021-2024, Gold Coast Health Collaborative Research Grant Scheme
• Lindy Willmott, Ben White and Patsy Yates, ‘Services to Develop and Provide Online Voluntary Assisted Dying Participating Practitioner Training’, 2020-2023 (options 2023-2025), Western Australian Government, Department of Health
• Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Patsy Yates and Shih-Ning Then, ‘End of Life Law for Clinicians’, refunded 2020-2023, Commonwealth Government, Department of Health
• Consortium of  QUT (overall project lead: Professor Patsy Yates), Flinders University (lead: Professor Jennifer Tieman), University of Technology, Sydney (lead: Professor Deborah Parker), Palliative Care Australia, Aged and Community Services Australia, Leading Age Services Australia, Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association, Catholic Health Australia, ‘End of Life Directions for Aged Care’, refunded 2020-2023, Commonwealth Government, Department of Health
• Lindy Willmott, Ben White, Patsy Yates and Malcolm Parker, ‘Development and Delivery of Voluntary Assisted Dying Training’, 2018-2020 (options 2021-2022), Victorian Government, Department of Health and Human Services
• Lindy Willmott, Ben White and Patsy Yates, ‘Development of Voluntary Assisted Dying Renewal Training Module’, 2022, Victorian Government, Department of Health and Human Services
• Nicholas Graves, Ken Hillman, Lindy Willmott, Ben White, Gillian Harvey, Leonie Callaway, Magnolia Cardona-Morrell, Adrian Barnett and Xing Lee, ‘Reducing Non-Beneficial Treatment at the End-of-Life’, 2018-2021, NHMRC
• Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Patsy Yates and Shih-Ning Then, ‘End of Life Law for Clinicians’, 2017-2020, Commonwealth Government, Department of Health
• Consortium of  QUT (overall project lead: Professor Patsy Yates), Flinders University (lead: Professor Jennifer Tieman), University of Technology, Sydney (lead: Professor Deborah Parker), Palliative Care Australia, Aged and Community Services Australia, Leading Age Services Australia, Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association, Catholic Health Australia, ‘End of Life Directions for Aged Care’, 2017-2020, Commonwealth Government, Department of Health
• Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Cheryl Tilse, Jill Wilson, Deborah Lawson, Jeffrey Dunn and Angela Pearce, ‘Enhancing community knowledge and engagement with law at the end of life’, 2014–2017, ARC Linkage Project
• Patsy Yates, Geoffrey Mitchell, David Currow, Kathy Eagar, Helen Edwards, Lindy Willmott, Ann Bonner, Robyn Clark and Jennifer Tieman, ‘NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in End of Life Care’, 2013–2017, NHMRC (Associate Investigator)
• Lindy Willmott, Ben White, Cindy Gallois, Malcolm Parker, Nick Graves and Sarah Winch, ‘Futile treatment at the end of life: legal, policy, sociological and economic perspectives’, 2012–2014, ARC Linkage Project
• Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Colleen Cartwright, Malcolm Parker and Gail Williams, ‘Withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining medical treatment from adults who lack capacity: The role of law in medical practice’, 2009–2012, ARC Linkage Project
• Cheryl Tilse, Jill Wilson, Anne-Louise McCawley, Ben White and Lindy Willmott, ‘Enduring documents – improving the forms, improving the outcomes’, 2009–2010, Legal Practitioner Interest on Trust Accounts Funds Grant Fund
• Lindy Willmott and Ben White, ‘Withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining medical treatment from adults who lack decision-making capacity: what is the role of medical professionals in decision-making and what is their knowledge of the law?’, 2008, Office of the Public Advocate
• Lindy Willmott and Ben White, ‘Improving service provision by legal practitioners to clients in relation to enduring powers of attorney and advance health directives’, 2005–2006, Legal Practitioner Interest on Trust Accounts Funds Grant Fund