AFMW Council Update | 27 March 2025

A council update for members and guests.

27 March 2025

This was our first regular council meeting of 2025

Twelve council members attended; I am happy to report we stayed on agenda, did not run too late and we conducted some important business:

• Our AFMW centenary year is approaching fast. 2027 is also the year Australia hosts the triennial MWIA Asia-Pacific meeting. We want to look like good hosts.
• We have decided to put our logo and our support behind the EDES Every Doctor, Every Setting action plan. What is this? I thought the name a bit non-revealing but the short answer is that it is an action plan to keep us doctors, happy and healthy. Please, let us prevent the next doctor suicide.
• We will have AFMW presence at the Egypt MWIA triennial congress in October of this year. Dr Gabrielle Casper utilizes her excess luggage allowance when travelling to such international events (70kg on her recent CSW trip!) filled with metal equipment to be donated to our sister doctors. Any donation of useful items, expired or not will be gratefully received by developing nations, start collecting now…

Bit by bit the workload of our various projects are being shouldered:

• Dr Brenda Masters our President is temporarily doing the work of AFMW Treasurer;
• The work of Membership management is deftly shouldered by our AFMW Secretary, Dr Katrina Harris;
• Dr. Sharon Miskell has volunteered to work on the Reconciliation Action Plan, after her 3 month trip to the Himalayas, but wouldn’t it be good if others could put in some prior work to updating the current working document – any volunteers?;
• Dr Holly Tonkin has offered to be yAFMW Rep;
• I have offered to help with the easy work of finishing off the Code the Conduct policy document drafted originally by Dr. Jennifer Schafer, Dr Sharon Miskell and Dr Brenda Masters. Nearly finished.

Have you ever had a whinge or wish concerning our current PBS listings? Have you wondered about the PBAC process? Well, complain or wonder no longer. There is an opportunity to step up to this advisory group to the Minister of Health and Aged Care.

The Commonwealth is seeking nominations from AFMW to the pool of candidates for this advisory group that is to consider the clinical effectiveness, safety and cost effectiveness of a medication compared with existing therapies. They want 50% of the group to be women. Possibly three 3-day meetings a year with additional reading time and appropriately remunerated.

It will require reading through clinical trials and research papers with a discerning eye so relevant experience is valued. A nomination does not mean that our candidate will be selected by them, but is available for selection when a vacancy on the committee occurs. The deadline for submission of our nominees is mid April, very soon, express your interest first and submit your credentials and CV to us by 10 April.

Other workforce needed on our Council:

We still have an opening for AFMW Treasurer and Individual Members representative to Council.

Our subcommittees (which do not require necessarily that members be elected to Council) that would benefit from input include the RAP (Reconciliation Action Plan), MEDWITH (Technology in Health), Governance, and Climate Health. See Working Group details here.

Do you notice how our projects list is bigger than our ability to outreach? You too are busy, as women we need octopus arms, multi-tasking is the norm. Hope you can send one of your eight arms our way – do let us know if you have any capacity to help!

 

Dr Sandra Hirowatari