The IMS Board works tirelessly to support the aims of the Society and to ensure that the best educational resources and updates on research are available to all the membership. However, do you really know who they are? This new occasional profile series gives you the opportunity to learn more about each Board member, providing a personal perspective and insight into the people who represent the leadership of the Society.
Professor Susan Davis is Director of Women’s Health Research at Monash University, Australia and President-Elect of the International Menopause Society.
I’ve been reading
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich – an extraordinary collection of interviews with Russians, from all walks of life, that provides insight into how individuals experienced the transition from communist USSR to Russia today. The individual stories are simultaneously diverse and unifying.
I’m researching
I have been researching the physical and psychological health of young Australian women, to provide a snapshot of menstrual, psychological and sexual well-being. We need to know how menstrual dysfunction impacts young women’s lives.
My team
I am privileged to lead a group who are not only talented and inquiring but, more importantly, are highly collaborative, supportive, enthusiastic and meticulous.
An anecdote
It’s often difficult to gauge the extent to which what we do as clinician researchers impacts practice. So I was truly touched when, in South Africa not long ago, a gynecologist made a point of telling me that he has on his desk, and regularly refers to, a copy of the Practitioner Toolkit for Managing Menopause that Dr Fiona Jane and I developed. It was nice to know that what we do can translate to health-care delivery, even in another country.
I’m worried about
Future opportunities for young clinician researchers. This career path has become so challenging that few are risking it. Unless the government channels more money into research and career opportunities, the clinician researcher will become a rarity, and this will be society’s loss.
I’ve been thinking
About how much noise there is: there’s been an explosion in the number of medical journals and the number of low-quality research papers being published. Many clinicians are not aware that many published findings are never re-affirmed or, by the test of time, found to be correct.
In my spare time
I like to keep active. I jog and cycle (not fast though), and my great love is skiing. My current project is upping my cycling distance in preparation for tackling ‘Around the Bay’ in Melbourne. As a newbie, I’m attempting the half-bay ride!
A thorn in my side
The extent to which the community has faith in unproven, and often disproven, OTC and natural therapies and little faith in evidence-based medicine.
What challenges me
Working out what to cook for dinner!
