AFMW is affiliated with MWIA, and has supported Louise’s work. We share Louise’s LinkedIn Post:
We are almost ready to submit our international book on sexual harassment within medicine. 10 years of work, 150 000 words, 70 authors, 23 countries and no formal funding, but an awful lot of goodwill from wonderful colleagues.
As is often the case, this is research and academic work that “falls through the cracks” of funding. It’s not really research, so no luck on the grant front. We’ve approached dozens of organisations who are supportive in principle but not in practice. We’ve crowd funded, begged, and donated an awful lot of time and labour.
BUT (and its a big but) we are still short at least $20 000 to make the book Open Access. I want this to reach students, doctors in training, and the people in developing countries, including those who wrote for the book. But, as a female GP and academic, I’ve got to say, my financial and pro bono investment are running a little dry.
As we said in the 70s, it would be nice if we didn’t have to have cupcake stalls, or in my case, crowd-funding to support us. But we do.
If you’re interested in the book, you can find out more at ofdoctorsbydoctors.com. If you’d like to shout me a coffee as I tackle the unpleasant part of the process (I’m up to indexing and formatting…..) please help.
I am beyond grateful for the support over the last decade. Thank you to all who have supported this work. I am humbled by the quality of writing and insight, and I can’t wait to see this book in print.
Professor, University of Adelaide; Associate Professor, Australian National University; Associate Professor, University of Melbourne
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. 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.
