Co-Chairs:
A/Prof Jennifer Neil (Australia)
A/Prof Jennifer Neil is an academic family doctor who has educated hundreds of health professionals in family violence across Australia. She is the Head of Curriculum at Monash University School of Medicine, the largest medical school in Australia including its Malaysian campus. She has instituted an innovative trauma-informed medical education approach across the medical school and has a research interest in that area. She has developed and delivered curriculum in family violence and trauma-informed care across Australia through organisations like Safer Families (The University of Melbourne) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP). She is the deputy chair of the RACGP specific interest group on family violence. She has co-authored three chapters in the RACGP guideline on abuse and violence. She is currently undertaking a PhD at The University of Melbourne on the experiences of GPs who are survivors of family violence and their experiences when working with families affected by family violence. In her clinical work she has interests in mental health, chronic disease management, women’s health and supporting survivors of family violence.
Dr Fadzilah Hanum Mohd Mydin (Malaysia)
Dr Fadzilah Hanum Mohd Mydin is an Associate Professor and Family Medicine Consultant at Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her expertise spans geriatrics in primary care, abuse of older people, lifestyle medicine, mental health, and health systems innovation. Her research focuses on critical yet often overlooked issues affecting older adults, including abuse of older people, advance care planning, social isolation, mental health, healthy ageing, health behaviours, and the use of technology in healthcare.
Her scholarly work on the abuse of older people brings together three main areas of focus: developing and delivering educational programmes for primary healthcare professionals, exploring the lived experiences of older adults affected by abuse, and creating evidence-based measurement instruments. As part of the Universiti Malaya Prevent Elder Abuse Initiatives (PEACE®) team, she has developed and implemented context sensitive training programmes and clinical guidelines to support healthcare practitioners in recognising and addressing abuse. Her doctoral research focused on designing and evaluating educational interventions that strengthen the capacity of primary healthcare providers to respond effectively to the abuse of older people.
Dr Fadzilah’s research contributions have been recognised internationally. Her paper on education in abuse of older people for primary care professionals received the 2025 Pierre Pluye International Award, while her systematic review on measurement instruments for abuse of older people, conducted in collaboration with the World Health Organization, has informed global approaches to safeguarding older adults. Her work on abuse of older people has also been honoured with a research award at the 2014 WONCA Asia Pacific Conference.
An active member of WONCA’s Special Interest Groups on Violence and Ageing, she contributes to advancing global and regional dialogues on healthy ageing and the protection of vulnerable older adults. As an academic, she supervises postgraduate students in the Master of Family Medicine and Master of Medical Science programmes at Universiti Malaya, mentoring future clinicians and researchers in family medicine and geriatric care. Beyond academia, she leads community-based initiatives such as Walk with A Doc Petaling Jaya, which promotes healthy ageing and intergenerational connection through lifestyle-based interventions.
Dr Fadzilah’s work strongly supports the core objectives of the WONCA Special Interest Group on Family Violence by advancing evidence-based resources, encouraging relevant research and quality improvement, and promoting engagement with national academies to influence policy and professional development. Her vision for the group is to strengthen the role of family doctors in identifying and responding to all forms of family violence, including the abuse of older people, through cross national collaboration, capacity building, and resource sharing. She remains deeply committed to ensuring that older adults, often marginalised in conversations about family violence, are meaningfully included in research, policy, and training efforts.
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