National Conference is COVID-safe. One week to go!

We’ve arranged things to keep you COVID-safe as you re-connect with friends and colleagues from across Australia and engage with the issues affecting medicine today. Registration will remain open throughout the conference so you can still join online, but why not meet us in person?  29-31 July.  

The entire conference and social events have been designed to enable social distancing, with hygiene precautions in place including free masks and hand sanitiser. We’re recommending masks be worn across the conference except when eating and drinking.

Seating in conference rooms and at the gala dinner will allow social distancing and our meals, conference drinks and gala dinner are being staged in large, ventilated open spaced areas.

While there won’t be dancing at the gala dinner (as a precaution) that won’t stop the fun or our ability to chat about the pressing issues we face as a profession.

Chief Medical Officer of St Vincent’s Health Australia, Professor Erwin Loh, is the latest addition to our conference session on public hospitals. Dogged by staff burnout, underfunding and unacceptable ambulance ramping, why has it been so hard to secure the required funding for our hospitals?

Former government health system leaders, Elizabeth Koff, CEO of Telstra Health, and formerly Secretary of NSW Health and former Tasmanian Health Minister and Premier and current CEO of AMA Tasmania, Lara Giddings will explain why. They are joined by Dr Clare Skinner, President of the Australian College of Emergency Medicine. 

On top of COVID-related sessions with big hitters, Professor Paul Kelly, Professor Brendan Murphy and a question time session with Health Minister Mark Butler and his opposition health counterpart, Anne Ruston, we have sessions covering issues like workforce shortages, the rural city health divide and climate change and its effects on our health. There’s something for every doctor in every sector.

We’ll dissect the future of private medicine with Chair of the Productivity Commission, Michael Brennan in conversation with former Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Health and now Calvary Healthcare CEO Martin Bowles and NiB CEO Mark Fitzgibbon. They are joined by Professor Anne Duggan, Chair of the Medicare Benefits Schedule Review Advisory Committee to discuss the MBS failure to meet private medical practice costs.

Dr Helen McArdle of the AMA Committee on Equity, Inclusion and Diversity will chair our session on removing barriers to women advancing into medical leadership. Among the guests are Professor Helena Teede AO Director of Monash Centre for Health Research Implementation a key force enabling the AMA to meet its gender targets, she’ll help us understand how it’s done along with Dr Lesley Barron, from the Women in Global Health Australia National Gender Equality in Health Leadership Committee.

The awards for Women in Medical Leadership and the Diversity in Medicine Award are being presented immediately after this session on Friday morning.

For GPs, don’t miss our general practice session allowing your input to the way Voluntary Patient Enrolment should proceed. It remains ill-defined in the government’s Ten-Year Plan for Primary Care Reform, but Dr Walid Jammal, Chair of the Primary Health Reform Steering Group is part of the session with the steering group’s co-Chair, Dr Steve Hambleton. As well as Former NSW AMA President Dr Danielle McMullen, Dr Maria Boulton, AMA QLD President and DiT representative, Dr Michael Hand.

And that’s all ahead of the formal ballot and election of the next AMA President and Vice President who will take on their new roles at the conclusion of the conference.

There’s still time to register here.