REGIONAL MEDICAL SPECIALISTS ASSOCIATION
MEDIA RELEASE
MEDICAL SPECIALISTS WORKING IN REGIONAL AREAS COME TOGETHER TO FORM A NEW ASSOCIATION TO WORK WITH GOVERNMENT, THE AMA AND THE PROFESSIONAL COLLEGES TO IMPROVE HEALTH CARE DELIVERY IN THE COUNTRY
A Report from the Inaugural Conference of the Regional Medical Specialists Association held in Canberra on Saturday 7th April 2018.
A new organization of medical specialists has formed to advocate for the interests of Australians living outside capital cities in the regional areas.
For the first time the group comprising surgeons, physicians, anaesthetists and intensivists came together to discuss professional issues relevant to working outside the vertical palaces of city hospitals to improve the care of people living in the country.
This unique association allows medical specialists practising in a wide variety of disciplines to share expertise with each about how to make health care and the hospitals in which they work better for the community.
The AMA and various specialist colleges such as the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the Royal Australian College of Physicians rightly concentrate on their own members and their own expertise. This new organization the Regional Medical Specialists Association can bring together the talent and expertise across all these organizations including links with legal organizations.
This association will address workforce mal-distribution and expand on existing strategies on recruiting medical specialists to regional areas in ways that other organizations and government cannot address. A variety of strategies were discussed and formulated to be disseminated later when fully developed.
It is intended that this organization and annual conference will provide a unique platform for academic presentations in both formal and informal ways that can provide immediate clinical solutions to working in a country area.
The Regional Medical Specialist Association can provide a ‘goto’ organization for an opinion and evaluation about healthcare matters specifically for the country and regional centres. Other organizations such as the Rural Doctors Association also provide significant contributions but are focussed on general practitioners, and this new organization brings together medical specialist expertise under the one umbrella.
It is the activities of dedicated medical specialists such as those that participate in the Regional Medical Specialist Association that can provide considered opinion and a strong unified voice in terrible situations that blindside a whole health department and hospital administrators such as those in charge of a public hospital.
The strength of this coalition of medical specialists working in regional areas is that it involves doctors from all medical disciplines and can provide unified advice on public health policy as well as the organization and quality of medical practice in public hospitals.
CONTACT:
Dr. Peter D Hughes FRACS
President, Regional Medical Specialists Association
PO Box 5646, Port Macquarie BC, NSW, 2444
President, Regional Medical Specialists Association
Tel: 0447 161 313 [any hour]