From the 24th-28th of November 2024 I had the opportunity to attend the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine’s 39th Annual Scientific Meeting on Kaurna county, after receiving the ACEM Foundation Conference Scholarship.
This year the conference was held in Adelaide where I had the chance to explore Semaphore Beach (kites can be seen here), River Torrens, Adelaide Botanic Garden and underwent the Roof Climb at Adelaide Oval.
Besides the sightseeing, I had the opportunity to attend the ACEM College Ceremony, pre conference, where new fellows and people doing extraordinary things in emergency medicine received awards for their success.
The first day of the conference had the theme “think that thought”. The opening plenary taught of the changes of teaching methods “from classroom to cloud” highlighting the best teachers there are in ED! I then attended a talk on Rural and Remote medicine featuring Charles Sturt University Northern Rivers Clinical Head of Campus Karly Field, who is my clinical supervisor. This session emphasised the amazing work doctors can do rural and inequalities community face in rural areas. I then attended a session on managing mental health where the emphasis was on the ED not being best place for mental health patients and training is needed to ensure patients receive appropriate care. I then attended the final plenary, The Cognition of Complex Decision Making which was so complex! After that we had a talk from NACCHO emphasising that our First Nations people have a discrepancy of five thousand dollars of funding and 150 000 cannot access ACCHO.
In the evening there was a networking function with the doctors, so I had the opportunity to track down awesome speakers.
Day 2 the theme was “Talk the Talk”. The opening plenary was working with AI, obviously this is becoming a big deal in medicine and my takeaway was AI will hopefully reduce our time doing paper work and increase our time with patients! Today my aim was to attend all the lectures that will help me in 4th year, so I attended Perplexing Paeds and Code Pink O and G emergencies. These sessions were so informative but also areas ED doctors find tricky dealing with as they see mostly adults and the elderly. I had also attended a session on a good death informing about Voluntary Assisted Dying and how this system differs state to state, but also cultural considerations that need to be addressed particularly in our First Nations communities. In the evening, I attended the Trainee networking function where I was surprised to find trainees PGY 7+ who were keen to impart their knowledge and guidance to me as a medical student. They all agreed rural medicine is the highlight of their careers but also travelling to each state is enjoyable.
Day 3 the theme was “Walk the Walk”. I got there a bit earlier to hear about a paper on CT pulmonary angiograms and how they are used more frequently but also find more pulmonary embolisms. After the opening plenary was on climate change demonstrating it is very real and 2 degrees warmer can make a huge difference to increased natural disasters and decreased health of our communities. I was keen to know more so attended a session after where an anaesthetist shared their experiences and how 10% nitrous oxide is administered to our patients and 90% is leaked out into our hospitals which has a greater impact on the environment then burning coal! Next a session on disaster medicine. This reminded me of doing past papers in my 3rd year exams as it focused on triage. There triage method was green: well or walking wounded, red: immediate attention, yellow: can delay care and black: dead. Next Sieved and Sorted. We then had an activity to practice! The takeaway was to use clinical judgement.
The gala dinner at the Adelaide Oval was fantastic.
The final day’s theme was “Dream the Dream”. I attended a paper talk on the growth in EDs demonstrating the high demand of increased staff and services. Next was a plenary on First Nations care from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Māori perspective. They presented on clinical yarning and Māori ways of being and doing. I then attended a session on Happy and Healthy Doctors which was discussing the importance of wellbeing including financial wellness. After I attended a session on equity in health focusing on rural and First Nations medicine. I feel proud to know I am one of 472 First Nations Students enrolled in medical school! The final plenary was on “What Really Matters” focusing on time and death.
Overall, after being confident on my future being as a rural generalist, during the week of meeting such passionate doctors I am sure I’ll find myself working in an ED as a FACEM, FACRRM, FRACGP. I also felt more prepared going into my second last year of study.”
Mikayla Budda-Deen
ACEM Foundation Scholarship report