While it’s been a long, cold winter, it has been my privilege as ACEM President to spend the past few months travelling around Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, meeting the extended ACEM family and working on the issues that matter to you.
A personal highlight was being able to warmly welcome so many of you to the Top End at the inaugural Regional, Rural and Remote (RRR) Emergency Medicine conference. Held over 7-9 July in Darwin, it was just fantastic. Thank you to those who made it along and to the organising committee and all ACEM staff who made the event such a success. I encourage you to scan the article in YourED. The conference is just one of the projects ACEM is working on towards improving RRR health. Specialist emergency medical care should be accessible for everyone, from cradle to grave, regardless of where they live.
Making connections and learning more about the people - Fellows, trainees and staff - and the communities they live and work in is crucial to the work we do. Hospitals and particularly our emergency departments (EDs) are facing intense pressures, including staffing shortages, lack of beds and resource constraints – we are all facing austerity measures. This, in turn, greatly affects the dedicated and passionate ED staff but it’s important to know that ACEM is working hard, locally, nationally and bi-nationally, on a range of projects aimed to relieve some of these pressures.
I’ve been busy getting in the ear of a range of decision-makers, ensuring the priorities of the emergency medicine community are at the forefront of their minds. In August, I met Australian health ministers in Sydney as part of the Council of Presidents of Medical Colleges and followed this up with a visit to Parliament House in Canberra. I met with the Minister for Health, Mark Butler, the Assistant Minister for Health, Ged Kearney, and the Office of the Shadow Minister for Health, Anne Ruston. I also met with our new Rural Health Commissioner, Professor Jenny May, and look forward to collaboration opportunities for the College in this space. I am fortunate that we have already worked closely together in the National Rural Health Alliance.
My time in Canberra was spent discussing ACEM's strategic projects including our Emergency Medicine Education and Training (EMET) Program. The College is campaigning heavily over the next few months to secure the crucial funding to allow EMET to continue in its current form past 2025. We’d love your support on this too. There are multiple ways to get involved – in particular, we’d love to hear of positive local stories we can promote more widely. You can also contact your local MP about the need for EMET funding. To hook in with our Campaign Team please contact [email protected] You can find out more about EMET here.
Advocacy wise, we had a wonderful result in Aotearoa New Zealand, with the May budget allocating $30.848 million for improving ED safety after campaigning by ACEM, welcomed by NZ Chair Dr Kate Allan as “a really promising start”. We’ve been working diligently behind the scenes to secure investments and commitments towards issues that faculties prioritise. This was a fantastic outcome.
Another really important issue has been the Northern Territory election. The NT Faculty publicly released its priorities prior to the August election and thank you to everyone who got involved in that process. We urgently want to see solutions that can curb growing levels of domestic and family violence, support victims and address the larger issues that create social despair and perpetuate violence. We’ll continue to advocate to the new NT Government on these and other crucial issues.
ACEM has also released research in partnership with the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA), relating to EDs and climate change. I encourage you to read the two reports that assess the impact of climate-related events on NSW EDs, and examine what EDs and hospitals across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand are doing in regard to sustainability practices.
On to international matters, I am pleased to be representing Australasia on the IFEM Board of Directors until 2026. Unfortunately, personal issues prevented me from attending ICEM 2024 in June, held in Taipei, Taiwan, and I thank Past President Dr John Bonning for stepping in. He has continued to do a wonderful job in promoting ACEM on the international stage.
Over the winter I’ve really focused on getting out and visiting as many EDs as I can – having one-on-one conversations with so many fantastic FACEMs and trainees has been a real privilege and just so incredibly rewarding. These conversations inform our advocacy, college priorities and strategic initiatives. In Adelaide, I visited Modbury and Flinders EDs, attended Faculty events and met the SA Health Minister Chris Picton. In Hobart I toured the Royal Hobart ED and spoke at the Geriatric Emergency Medicine Seminar (GEMSEM) conference. I also attended a Tasmania Faculty Meeting, which was a really important one, as we discussed violence in EDs with Dale Webster, Acting Secretary, Department of Health.
I then spent time in Christchurch, touring the ED and chatting with FACEMs and trainees. I zipped across a few time zones to the west coast, where I visited Royal Perth, Sir Charles Gairdner and Fiona Stanley EDs, attended Faculty events, met with the WA Country Health Service, and also met the Minister for Health, Amber-Jade Sanderson. Over to the east coast, I visited Westmead for a NSW Faculty meeting and met the NSW Minister for Health, Ryan Park. Heading south, I popped into the Royal Melbourne Hospital before attending a meeting for the Victorian Faculty focused on trainees and ACEM's training programs.
I was lucky enough to get home – very briefly! – and host an NT Faculty Meeting at Alice Springs Hospital. I also met with Federal MP Marion Scrymgour to discuss domestic violence and concussion research, as well as key health reform issues in the NT.
Next, I visited Cairns ED and met with the Chief Executive of Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service, Leena Singh, before attending the Autumn Symposium and Queensland Faculty meeting in Brisbane. I also toured the newly opened Tweed Valley Hospital and Lismore Base Hospital EDs. My thanks to Anne Drinkwater for hosting the NSW Faculty Meeting in Lismore, where we explored the topical theme of disaster preparedness.
I took the opportunity to head up into regional Queensland, soaking up some much-needed winter sun along the way to EDs in Mackay and Townsville. Townsville played host to our Queensland Faculty meeting, where we were joined by emergency medicine specialist Gayle Galletta, who was visiting from the United States. Dr Galletta spoke of dealing with burnout and her experiences, leaving us all with plenty to reflect upon.
In College news, there were important updates to ACEM’s CPD program on 1 August, due to new Health Outcomes requirements mandated by the Australian Medical Council and the Medical Council of New Zealand. Chair of the ACEM CPD Committee Dr Shamus Shepherd has recorded a video explaining the changes and their impact on ACEM’s CPD program. For more detailed information, you can read the Health Outcomes Activity Guide and the Cultural Safety Activity Guide.
In August, members from the ACEM Board, Council of Advocacy, Practice and Partnerships (CAPP ), and Council of Education (COE) participated in a strategy session to commence the development of the 2025-27 strategic plan. The overall goal is to develop the 2025-27 ACEM Strategy, ensuring it reflects a broad and deep insight and enables member and stakeholder contributions to provide clarity of purpose, direction, and priorities over the coming years. Consultation will occur over the coming months. The aim is to present the final strategy to the ACEM Board for approval at its December 2024 meeting.
While it has been busy, I have enjoyed every moment of it and I feel that our voice is being heard. I also can’t quite believe it’s nearly been a year since the President Handover at the last Annual Scientific Meeting. The theme of the 2024 ASM is Challenge Accepted: A Better EM Future and I encourage you to take the leap and register. Come along to Adelaide this November and meet more of the ACEM community, take part in immersive workshops and make lasting connections.
I hope to see many of you on the dance floor at the ASM!
Dr Stephen Gourley
ACEM President