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Annual Presidents' Reports

2004 - Dr Ian Scott (cont...)

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Advancing General Medicine: An Agenda for Change

In response to the General Medicine Forum recommendations, to resolutions about new working relationships between the college and the specialty societies, and to developments in the RACP Educational Strategy, IMSANZ has released a draft action plan for achieving a number of key objectives related to services and training in general medicine. This document with the above mentioned title has been reviewed by Council and has received contributions from Rick McLean, chair of the RACP Rural Taskforce and new chair of the AMDC, and Sue Morey, former Chief Health Officer of NSW. The plan comprises 4 domains comprising training, general medical units in teaching hospitals, rural and regional services, and professional development. For each domain, specific actions, timelines and performance criteria have been enunciated. This will be discussed in more detail later in the meeting so I will not dwell on it here, except to say that we ask all members to endorse the final document and do what they can within their local areas to implement the proposed actions.

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Awards and Scholarships

IMSANZ Council last year endorsed the establishment of a set of awards and scholarships worth up to $18,000 per year for promoting excellence in research, teaching and professional development in general medicine, with emphasis given to trainees and fellows of less than 5 years standing. These sponsorships are in addition to the IMSANZ/Roche award given for best paper at the IMSANZ free paper session tomorrow. Our travelling scholarship and research fellowship were included in the 2004 college listing of awards and grants.

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Communication Media

In the last few months the Society has subjected its website to a full makeover, modernising its style and adding new features which were outlined in the April newsletter. I wish to thank Anne Kovach for her assistance in website design. The newsletter has also seen change with more content and an increase in the number of issues to 3 per year. I thank Michelle Levinson and Tom Thompson for all their editorial assistance in producing a first-class product. The Society has also introduced a monthly e-mail service to all members who have internet summarising recent developments in college and IMSANZ affairs that are of interest to our members. All these media improvements are designed to keep our members informed of news and aware of the efforts being made by the Society to represent their interests.

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Consultancies and Representations

Over the last 12 months, IMSANZ was invited to review and provide formal endorsement of a number of clinical practice guidelines released by national bodies. These included the stroke guidelines from the National Stroke Foundation, the revised hypertension guidelines from the National Heart Foundation, and the secondary prevention guidelines for heart disease from the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand. IMSANZ also received and made responses to a discussion document dealing with avoidable admissions in older people commissioned by the federal health department, and Gerard Carroll represented IMSANZ at a meeting discussing pre-hospital management of myocardial infarction convened by the Cardiac Society. Les Bolitho attended the Australian Health Care Summit in September last year as a representative of both IMSANZ and the RACP Rural Taskforce. Michael Kennedy assists Australian Prescriber and serves on a New Drugs Working Group of the National Prescribing Service, and I serve as a member of the National Institute of Clinical Studies Heart Failure Advisory Group. Our New Zealand colleagues have been involved in making submissions to their government on issues such as medical misadventure, pharmacy tenders, workforce strategies, and response plans to major disease outbreaks.

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Scientific Meetings and Presentations

IMSANZ was pleased to sponsor two advanced trainees, Drs Sarah Lynn and Andrew Wesseldine to attend the European School of Internal Medicine in Alicante, Spain in October last year. In addition to the RACP ASM, other scientific meetings involving IMSANZ have been the combined NZ Rheumatology Association/RACP/IMSANZ meeting in Rotorua in August last year, the very successful NZ IMSANZ meeting in Nelson last month organised by Bruce King, and the forthcoming RACP NZ/TSANZ/IMSANZ meeting in Christchurch in August. I have been involved in organising a national heart forum sponsored by NICS to be held in Canberra in June. Also, IMSANZ represented by Les Bolitho is assisting the RACP in its bid in Granada later this year for Melbourne to be anointed host city for the 2010 International Congress of Internal Medicine. This meeting attracts more than 3,000 delegates from around the world and is the annual forum of the International Society of Internal Medicine of which the RACP became a member 2 years ago. We are very fortunate in having both its president and secretary-general as keynote speakers at a plenary session at the Canberra ASM talking to the issue of the need for more generalists.

IMSANZ Council at its meeting yesterday endorsed the idea of having an IMSANZ scientific meeting in the latter half of 2005 in Alice Springs to be conducted from 1st to 4th September. Stephen Brady and Diane Howard will comprise the local organising committee and the meeting content will comprise multiple presentations covering the spectrum of clinical practice, with special emphasis on the needs of the rural and remote physician.

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New Members and Councillors

On behalf of the Society I welcome the 35 new members who have joined us over the last year. I would also like to express the gratitude of council to the efforts over the last 2 years of Rob Nightingale, Kenneth Ng, Thein Htut and Graeme Dickson who today have completed their terms as councillors. We wish them well and know they will continue their ongoing interest in society affairs. I also regret the need for David Russsell to stand down for personal reasons and look forward to his being able to rejoin council in the near future. As their replacements on Council I welcome Nicole Hancock from Tasmania, Peter Nolan from Queensland, Christian de Chaneet from WA, Michele Levinson from Victoria, and Patrick Gladding from NZ. It is also my pleasure to announce that Phillippa Poole has accepted nomination as president elect for 2005 and will become our first female president. Finally I would like to give special thanks to the Society’s secretariat, Mary Fitzgerald. Mary took over from Cherie McCune after last year’s AGM and has had a baptism of fire, having to cope with a surge in workload and a complete relocation of her office back to 145 Macquarie Street. She has managed to execute all the tasks we have handed to her with both efficiency and remarkable affability and she deserves our appreciation for a difficult job well done.

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Closing Comments

In closing I hope this report gives an indication of the level of activity that IMSANZ is presently engaged in. This Society has come a long way since its beginnings in 1992 but there are new challenges that we will all need to grapple with over the next few years. There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and change; and if we are to take full advantage of the opportunities that change provides us in shaping the agenda of college and government policy in a way that allows general medicine to flourish, then we must be prepared as a community of physicians to be actively involved and be the engineers of that change. Our society and our discipline can only have influence if those who practise within it stand united and committed to a vision of progress and the means for achieving it. I thank all members for their support.

Dr Ian Scott, MBBS, FRACP, MHA, MEd.
President, IMSANZ (2003-2005)
17 May 2004

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