Dr Raie Goodwach, President
Dr Magdalena Simonis, Vice President
Dr Marissa Daniels, Treasurer
Dr Annie Kilpatrick, Secretary 
Associate Professor Jan Coles, Immediate Past President

Dr Linny Kimly Phuong, Sponsorship Officer
Dr Claire Steiner, Newsletter Editor/ Publicity Officer
Dr Skye Siskos, Newsletter Editor/ Publicity Officer
Dr Georgina Lyons, IT/ Publicity Officer

Dr Rosalind Terry, Senior Members' Representative
Dr Madhura Naidu, Social Secretary 
Dr Sarah Heynemann, Social Secretary

Dr Desiree Yap, AFMW President Elect/ General committee member
Dr Natalie Marijanovic, VMWS Representative to AMA Victoria Council

Dr Kate Duncan, General Committee member 
A/Prof Deborah Colville, General Committee member
Dr Jill Tomlinson, General Committee member
Dr Mikhaila Lazanyi, General Committee member
Ms Natalie Kew- Student Representative (Melbourne)
Ms Jane Doan- Student Representative (Monash)

Dr Raie Goodwach - VMWS President
Raie is a medically-trained psychotherapist with a Masters in Psychoanalytic Studies. She has published in the areas of adoption and sex therapy. She was a Consultant to the Sexual & Relationship Counseling Clinic at MMC for 18 years and an Honorary Lecturer in the Dept of Obstetrics & Gynaecology. She sees individuals and couples for therapy in her private practice. Her main area of interest is psychosexual medicine. As an Advisor to Andrology Australia and as a member of the teaching faculty of  Family Planning Victoria she facilitates professional workshops and is involve in the development of educational resources for general practitioners.
In 2010 she ran the “Happy Healthy Women Not Just Survivors” project on behalf of VMWS with Jan Coles representing AFMW with funding from the AWC. Its aim is to improve the longterm health and wellbeing of women with a history of sexual violence. 

Dr Magdalena Simonis - VMWS Vice President

As a full time General Practitioner with interests in Women’s Health, Magdalena joined the VMWS after attending the Western Pacific Medical Women’s Conference held in Melbourne in 2008.

She believes that the interaction and collaboration with medical women from around the world, to discuss and design changes that can enhance the well being and livelihood of women and children around the globe, are crucial.  The ability to take those recommendations through to the UN level via VMWS and AFMW are what drew her to being involved.

Magdalena is also on the board of directors for the Australian Greek Welfare Society and in 2011,  was appointed GP representative to the National Standing Committee on E-Health. She is also  a GP examiner  and  a committee member of the Victorian Medico Legal Society. 

Dr Marissa Daniels- Treasurer

Marissa is an intensive care trainee who is currently working towards a PhD in the genetic basis of lung cancer.  As a member of VMWS, she has discovered the opportunity to expand her academic interests in the molecular basis of disease and bioethics to explore how these may benefit minority groups and those in resource-limited settings.  She is inspired by the extensive collective knowledge and vast experience of the VMWS in addressing issues of local, national and international importance to individuals and communities.  Through VMWS she is gaining an understanding of issues facing the international medical community, and how she can contribute in a meaningful way.  As a trainee, she has found VMWS to be a source of great support and advice, as well as inspiration.  In her spare time, Marissa enjoys playing the violin, running and cooking with fresh food from her garden.

Dr Annie Kilpatrick - VMWS Secretary

Annie is a doctor originally from Colac, a country town in Victoria. She has attended VMWS events over the last few years and really enjoyed them. This year she decided it was about time to become a part of the committee and play an active role in this fantastic society. As a medical student, she was actively involved in Monash University’s rural health club WILDFIRE and enjoyed passing on her love for rural practice to fellow students. Annie has particular interests in obstetrics and also cardiology. In her spare time she enjoys reading (non med text books), going to movies and musicals, keeping fit, travelling and spending time with family and friends!

A/Professor Jan Coles – Immediate Past President VMWS
Jan is an academic General Practitioner. She is an Associate Professor at Monash University Department of General Practice and was a Senior Research Fellow for Child Abuse Prevention Research Australia. Her special interests are the teaching and learning of clinical skills, the impact of childhood sexual abuse on the lives of women, particularly early mothering, breastfeeding and maternal touch, prevention of child abuse, and occupational based violence. She is active in the Women's Working Party of WONCA.

Dr Linny Kimly Phuong - VMWS Sponsorship Officer
Linny is a second year resident at the Alfred embarking on the physicians’ training pathway. She loves meeting the many doctors and medical students at our events, and the great opportunities that being part of VMWS provides including attendance at the United Nations NGO Conference in Melb last year. She is also quite active outside her role at the Alfred, as the PMCV’s Junior Medical Officer Co-Chair for this year, involvement with the AMA Doctors’ In Training and Red Cross Refugee and Asylum Seeker Programs and is currently leading the project for an AMA collaboration with the Brotherhood of St Laurence for a refugee health project. Outside of the medical world, she continues to pursue lessons in classical ballet.

Dr Claire Steiner - VMWS Newsletter Editor/ Publicity Officer
Born in Melbourne, Claire grew up Orange in rural NSW, only to return to the city to study medicine at Melbourne University. After graduating in 2009 she went on to complete her internship at The Geelong Hospital and has returned again to metropolitan Melbourne and is currently a resident at St Vincent's Hospital in Fitzroy and has a very strong interest in General Surgery. She has very much enjoyed her VMWS experiences over the past 3 years and the fabulous connections found therein. In her spare time she tries to keep fit (when she's not working or sleeping) and to make sure there's always time to enjoy the good things in life - friends, food and family.

Dr Skye Siskos- VMWS Newsletter Editor/ Publicity Officer
Skye Siskos is the first VMWS student representative from Deakin University. She grew up in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne and completed a Bachelor of Arts/Science degree at Monash University before embarking on her medical training at Deakin University in Geelong. She is currently undertaking her final clinical year at Geelong Hospital and is loving every minute. She is also the social chair of the Geelong Clinical School Committee, a role she thoroughly enjoys. She is passionate about women’s health and women’s role in healthcare.  Her current medical interests include obstetrics and gynaecology as well as general practice. After attending a VMWS function where she met such influential women who so impressively balanced work and life, she knew she had to be involved. She is honoured to be part of the VMWS as shadow newsletter editor and is keen to be involved any way she can. When she is away from her study she loves to spend quality time with her family (including her two puppies), partner and friends as well as run, go to the movies and play piano.

 Dr Georgina Lyons- VMWS IT/ Publicity Officer
 Georgina grew up on a cattle stud in the Adelaide Hills and is a basic physician trainee at St. Vincent's Hospital  studying part-time for  a Masters of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. A passion for women's health and human rights issues recently led Georgina to  volunteer with 'Living Positive Kenya' working with HIV positive women in the slums of Ngong, Kenya, which she found challenging  but thoroughly enjoyable! Georgina maintains an active role in public health research, having just completed a project with the Skin  and Cancer Foundation on occupational dermatitis, and sits on the Deakin University Human Research Ethics board. Outside of the  hospital, she plays her electric guitars (somewhat poorly!), enjoys camping, hiking and watersports, and café hops around Melbourne with her family and friends. Georgina is thrilled to join the VMWS committee in 2012!

Dr Desiree Yap - AFMW President Elect
Desiree is an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist with a Masters in Public Health and Tropical Medicine who has appointments at Monash Medical Centre and The Royal Women’s Hospital but who is currently working part-time in her East Melbourne Private Practice whilst trying to mother her two young children. Before becoming so domestic, Desiree travelled widely, working both in rural and remote Australia as well as overseas including with WHO. Desiree believes VMWS springs from a fine tradition, and that as one who has reaped the benefits of those who went before, in addition to having strong feelings about social justice, feels a responsibility towards maintaining the organisation.

Dr Natalie Marijanovic - VMWS Representative to AMA Victoria Council
http://amavic.com.au/page/About_Us/AMA_Victoria_Council/

Natalie graduated from The University of Melbourne in 2005. She has completed her Basic Physician Training and is currently an Advanced Trainee in General Medicine at The Royal Melbourne Hospital. She is a Hospital in the Home Registrar, is undertaking Endocrinology research and is a general medicine outpatient clinic Registrar. She has been a member of the Victorian Medical Womens' Society since her student days and has been in her current role for over six years. As the VMWS representative to the Council of AMA Victoria, she attends five Council meetings per year and represents the VMWS's views. The Council "is a forum for members to raise and discuss issues affecting the profession and patients and is a forum to influence policy and activities via recommendation to the Board" of AMA Victoria. Natalie greatly enjoys and finds fulfilling her involvement with the VMWS, including opportunities to meet other medical women at all stages in their education and careers and from all areas of medicine.

Dr Madhura Naidu - VMWS Social Secretary

A fresh graduate from Monash University, Madhura is currently an intern at Southern Health. Having been an active student member of VMWS, she is delighted to continue her involvement in the society, and hopes to contribute to, and be part of the exciting events on the calendar this year in her role as the social secretary. Over the course of her medical education, Madhura has developed particular interests in research and surgery, and hopes to pursue these fields in her career. Madhura is also an avid reader of fiction, a dedicated 'filmophile', and has a strong love for travelling.

Dr Sarah Heynemann - VMWS Social Secretary

Sarah is currently an intern at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. She initially joined the VMWS as a student representative for the University of Melbourne, and this year transitions to involvement in a social secretary capacity. As a student she pursued interests in rural/remote medicine and the challenges of medicine in resource-poor settings, spending time in rural Victoria and Queensland, the Northern Territory and Laos. This year she is enjoying being based back in the city and outside of medicine spends time trawling through second-hand bookshops, cooking, swimming, and catching up with family and friends.

Dr Rosalind Terry - VMWS Senior Members' Representative

Rosalind is the first member in the new position of Senior Members’ Representative. Nearing seventy, she works part-time as an Emergency Consultant at The Alfred Hospital and spends her other time breeding beef cattle and enjoying her four grandchildren aged 1-13.
Originally Melbourne-trained she returned twenty years ago after working in places as diverse as Tasmania, Sydney, Chicago, Norfolk Island and Papua New Guinea (ten years) and in many fields chiefly surgery, obstetrics and tropical medicine. Much of that time was spent in relative isolation from medical colleagues, especially female ones, so on discovering VMWS in the 1990s she was delighted to have companionship and shared interests with other medical women.
As the Senior Members’ Representative is a new position she is feeling her way but sees a dual role of interacting with senior members and also as a mentor to medical students and younger doctors.

A/Professor Deborah Colville - AFMW National Coordinator
Deb is a Melbourne ophthalmologist who graduated from Monash in 1975 and is a Fellow of the College of Ophthalmologists and the College of Surgeons (1983). She has a small private practice in Ivanhoe. Deb was a Director of Ophthalmology at Austin Repatriation Medical Centre and recently retired from the College of Surgeons Council and as Chair of the RACS Women in Surgery Committee, a position she held for nine years. Deb’s Master of Public Health degree focused on educational program evaluation in health care and she now researches curriculum and public health themes, including ophthalmic public health, gender and curriculum, and women in leadership in vocational education and training. She is interested in ‘doing leadership differently’, developing ways of participation that ‘work for women’ in the profession. Arising from the MWIA meeting in Sydney 2001, Deb taught medical students in Sweden and participated in curriculum development for MWIA with its Executive, alongside gender experts from the WHO and UN, in Italy.

Dr Kate Duncan - AFMW Regional Liaison
Kate is an Obstetrician in private practice in the south-east suburbs. Interest in VMWS goes back to early days as an intern, RMO and Registrar at the Queen Vic (where we had such wonderful mentors and role models). Kate has been a Committee member of both the VMWS and the AFMW. As an AMA Board member Kate is working at the State level on several issues including efforts to resolve the Medical indemnity crisis and the Provider number issue.

Dr Jillian Tomlinson - General Committee
Jill is a plastic, reconstructive and hand surgeon. In 2008-09 Jill developed and managed Bridging Leadership Barriers, a multifaceted national AFMW development and leadership project funded by the Australian Government Office for Women. As part of her work on this project Jill redeveloped the AFMW website and received the national 2009 Centre For Leadership For Women Award. Jill was nominated for the Westpac Community Treasurer Awards in 2011 for her tireless work as VMWS Treasurer. Jill's current appointments also include AFMW Secretary, Webmaster and Newsletter Editor, Assistant Editor for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery and Faculty Member of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Academy of Surgical Educators. Jill is a certified Deep Diver (SCUBA) and when she is not working she enjoys running, tending to her bonsai and writing.

Ms Natalie Kew-  VMWS Medical Student Representative (Melbourne)

Natalie is currently a second year student at the University of Melbourne. She is very excited to start clinical school at Footscray Hospital this year. She is excited to be a part of the VMWS committee this year and is especially looking forward to her involvement with "Postcards from Abroad" and "Canapes for a Cause" Having grown up in Darwin she has a strong interest in rural social inequity in health and education. Her current medical interests include research, psychiatry, general practice and obstetrics. Outside of medicine she enjoys travelling, yoga, reading and catching up with family and friends.

Ms Jane Doan -  VMWS Medical Student Representative (Monash)

Jane is a Monash University student who in 2012 will be undertaking 4th year medicine with core rotations in women's health, paediatrics, GP and psychology. This is her first year as a member of the VMWS and she is excited to commence in her role as Monash University Student Representative and looking forward to becoming involved in VMWS' projects and attending the great events planned for the year.
During her medical training so far, she has developed interest in the fields of haematology and respiratory medicine and away from medicine; Jane enjoys spending time with friends and family, discovering new music and planning her next overseas holiday, having just finished a trip through Western Europe.

  Ms Zoë Dorevitch-  VMWS Medical Student Representative (Melbourne)