Dr Tahnee Bridson Young Australian of the Year recipient (2022) is founder of Hand’n’Hand, a peer support service for doctors in Australia and New Zealand. In this article, Tahnee shares with us the good news from Melbourne Victoria, where she now lives around developments with Hand’n’Hand.
As a bit of background about Tahnee firstly, is that she is a psychiatry registrar, born and raised in Northern Queensland of Italian heritage, Tahnee graduated James Cook University in 2017 with a Bachelor of Medical Science with First Class Honours and a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery.
She was awarded the Rural Doctor’s Association of Queensland Prize, the Townsville Hospital Emergency Department Trust Fund Critical and Crisis Care Year 6 Prize and the University Medal. Tahnee’s bio is impressive for someone at such a young age and her list of awards just keeps growing longer.
Happy 3rd birthday to Hand n Hand!
Since its founding in 2020, Hand n Hand team members have been working remotely from different locations across Australia. However, thanks to the generosity of Cabrini Health, they now have a new home at Cabrini Elsternwick in Melbourne!
The new office will be a cozy and welcoming space for team members to conduct face-to-face meetings and events. Hand n Hand are looking forward to supporting more healthcare workers from their new home. Another big achievement has been the transition from ‘garage band’ to nationally established company – a journey 3 years in the making.
In the last few months, Hand n Hand have welcomed their inaugural Board of Directors, which is being led by Dr Kym Jenkins and includes: Prof Brett McDermott, , Dr Michael Bonning, Ms Kay Dunkley (as company secretary) and Dr Tahnee Bridson.
They are also in the process of appointing their very first Executive Officer, who will be the first person to work in the newly donated offices from Cabrini Health.Thank you to Cabrini for supporting this not-for-profit organisation and providing a space to better improve healthcare workers’ mental health.
By Dr Tahnee Lee Bridson
2022 QLD Young Australian of the Year
Associate Professor Magdalena Simonis AM is the Immediate 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.
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.
