Dear AFMW Members and Friends,
I hope you have all had an opportunity to rest and spend time with family and friends. We are already in full swing for the new year with a line up of Events and Open Forums planned. You will see that I have been active in the media already in an effort to provide health advice to the public through major media platforms.
My recent article in The Age / Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 15 January, titled GP tips on how to manage COVID-19 at home was the second most read article in the nation for the day and is still being circulated widely. It was preceded by a similar article in the Greek paper Neos Kosmos, both in English and in Greek. This was then reprinted as a double page lift out in the weekend edition just passed, for people to pull out and retain for further reference. I’ve been advocating for more GP support as you will see in my interview in The Guardian and in NewsGP as the state of Victoria has declared a ‘code brown’.
Despite the spread of COVID in the Eastern States and elsewhere in Australia and the world, the year ahead is looking exciting for AFMW.
Our Herstory this month features Dr Rosalind ‘Ros’ Terry, a long-standing member of Victorian Medical Women’s Society (VMWS). Through Ros, we learn that the path to medicine can sometimes be curly due to obstacles, but that loving medicine and believing in yourself brings you to closer to your goals.
We will start the year with an Open Forum special COVID session on Thursday February 3rd 8pm AEDT, which I’ll be speaking at and we’ll be talking about COVID in general practice.
Our first AFMW Council meeting is scheduled for February 7th 8PM AEDT.
In March this year, AFMW will be hosting another parallel session at this year’s 66th UN Commission on the Status of Women.
Our event session is, Australian Women Doctors: Climate Change and Gender Equity Advocates and Activists. DATE & TIME: 20/03/2022 at 8:00 AM EST. I hope many of you participate and regarding attendance, you will notice I selected a time that suits the northern hemisphere for this year. The intention is that we will host our own session at an agreeable time for the Southern hemisphere, record it then run the recorded session at the allocated time to encourage people from the northern hemisphere to attend.
Climate change and COVID-19 are our greatest challenges and our hope is that the focus on Climate Change should not be shifted despite the daily reminders regarding the pandemic. If any of you have not seen the film Don’t Look Up, please make the time to watch it. It’s a very confronting film that demonstrates how difficult it is to communicate science to the public and how people’s interpretation of science messages can be manipulated. We all have a part to play in making the changes needed to avert what is otherwise inevitable.
Around midyear, we all look forward to the MWIA Congress in June this year in Taiwan, and this is a reminder that the final abstract submissions for the MWIA Congress close on January 28th. We are gearing up to having many of our members submit abstracts and attend from Australia.
As a final note, I hope you all remain safe and keep positive despite the constant pressure we face as healers, during one of the world’s greatest health challenges and I look forward to riding these challenges and taking the journey through 2022 together.
Magdalena Simonis
President, AFMW
Associate Professor Magdalena Simonis AM is a Past President of the AFMW (2020-2023), former President of VMWS (2013 & 2017-2020) and current AFMW National Coordinator (2024-2026). She is a full time clinician who also holds positions on several not for profit organisations, driven by her passion for bridging gaps across the health sector. She is a leading women’s health expert, keynote speaker, climate change and gender equity advocate and government advisor. Magda is member of The Australian Health Team contributing monthly articles.
Magdalena was awarded a lifetime membership of the RACGP for her contributions which include past chair of Women in General Practice, longstanding contribution to the RACGP Expert Committee Quality Care, the RACGP eHealth Expert Committee. She is regularly invited to comment on primary care research though mainstream and medical media and contributes articles on various health issues through newsGP and other publications.
Magdalena has represented the RACGP at senate enquiries and has worked on several National Health Framework reviews. She is author of the RACGP Guide on Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery and co-reviewer of the RACGP Red Book Women’s Health Chapter, and reviewer of the RACGP White book
Both an RACGP examiner and University examiner, she undertakes general practice research and is a GP Educator with the Safer Families Centre of Research Excellence, which develops education tools to assist the primary care sector identify, respond to and manage family violence . Roles outside of RACGP include the Strategy and Policy Committee for Breast Cancer Network Australia, Board Director of the Melbourne University Teaching Health Clinics and the elected GP representative to the AMA Federal Council. In 2022. she was award the AMA (Vic) Patrick Pritzwald-Steggman Award 2022, which celebrates a doctor who has made an exceptional contribution to the wellbeing of their colleagues and the community and was listed as Women’s Agenda 2022 finalist for Emerging Leader in Health.
Magdalena has presented at the United Nations as part of the Australian Assembly and was appointed the Australian representative to the World Health Organisation, World Assembly on COVID 19, by the Medical Women’s International Association (MWIA) in 2021. In 2023, A/Professor Simonis was included on the King’s COVID-19 Champion’s list and was also awarded a Member (AM) in the General Division for significant service to medicine through a range of roles and to women’s health.
