For FACEM Professor Diana Egerton-Warburton, the honour of delivering the Tom Hamilton Oration at next month’s Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) in Perth takes on extra meaning.
“It’s a huge honour and particularly important for me because Tom Hamilton was my first director at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth,” Professor Egerton-Warburton recalls. “I was there as an intern, a Hospital Medical Officer, during my first rotation as a doctor in the emergency department.
“I have huge admiration for Tom, personally and from the work he has done for the College over the years, how he basically took pretty much nothing and made it what we have today 35 years later – a leading, dynamic College.
“Tom has always had a special place in my heart.”
The Tom Hamilton Oration will be held on Sunday, 18 November as part of the College Ceremony.
Passionate advocate for patients, the community and for the health system
Professor Egerton-Warburton has a passion for patient and community advocacy. As the Director of Emergency Medicine Training at Monash Medical Centre, she has developed and guided a generation of emergency medicine specialists – many of whom now have leadership and teaching roles nationally. And she is passionate about developing women in leadership roles.
Some of Professor Egerton-Warburton’s career highlights include her position as President of the Australasian Society for Emergency Medicine from 1997 to 2000. In 2016 her leadership was recognised with the awarding of Australian Medical Association's Women in Medicine Award for an ‘outstanding contribution to emergency medicine with a strong passion for public health’. She was inducted onto the Victorian Women’s Honour Roll in 2018.
Professor Egerton-Warburton has been actively involved with ACEM for over two decades, and in 2013 she was awarded the ACEM Teaching Excellence medal.
“As part of my oration I am in interested in providing the New Fellows who will be at the College Ceremony some of my insights after 30 years in emergency departments about how to maintain the excitement and enjoyment of emergency medicine,” Professor Egerton-Warburton says.
“I want to talk about language, compassion and empathy, and these are the things I directly learnt from Tom.”
Emergency medicine has made its mark
Professor Egerton-Warburton says the specialty of emergency medicine not only plays a critical role in the wider health system, “but it has also matured to such a state we’ve stepped outside of the original focus which was about training specialists to playing a greater role in the broader community and within government”.
Professor Egerton-Warburton is looking forward to attending the ASM as it is “so important to keep those connections with your colleagues from interstate and other jurisdictions”.
“Obviously there is the scientific element of the meeting, it’s so important for the College to showcase its research and advocacy, but also the networking element is key,” she says.
Register now
Registration is open for the ASM, themed ‘On the Edge’. Join us 18-22 November in Perth where we explore the multiple different facets of life in emergency medicine.
Check out the program and further details on the ASM website.