Rural doctors from across Australia are dusting off their travel bags and getting ready to descend on the nation’s capital, with the first face-to-face Rural Medicine Australia conference in three years being held next month.
The major annual conference is convened by the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) and Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA).
With registrations already above 700 attendees, RMA22 promises to be a great event…and a wonderful opportunity for rural doctors to reconnect after the past three years of enormous workload, stress and isolation due to the COVID pandemic.
More than 100 sessions will be on offer at RMA22, featuring topics including:
- Extreme Medicine – the delivery of medical care from Antarctica to outer space.
- A new Stolen Generation – since 2008, there has been more than a doubling in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out of home care. This session will consider the health and wellbeing ramifications.
- Delivering medical care via ship in remote PNG – treating everything from malaria to machete wounds.
- Angry patients – a ‘what to do’ session for doctors.
- Attracting rural students to medical careers, expanding training opportunities for young doctors across the range of specialties in the bush, and teaching early year medical students in rural and regional settings.
- Providing end of life care and other care – during bushfires, floods and pandemics.
As well as individual workshops and presentations, RMA22 will feature an impressive line-up of keynote speakers as well as plenary sessions and other events.
These include:
- The Great Debate – 'Subspeciality medicine - way of the future?'
- RMA Presidents Breakfast – ‘Change is here’
- RMA Conference Awards Dinner – to be held in The Great Hall at Parliament House
- Innovative ‘Lunch and Learn’ and Poster Blitz micro-learning sessions covering topics including virtual care, Rural Assistants in Medicine, Long COVID, mindfulness, STI management, infertility, restoring rural obstetric services, diabetes management in Indigenous patients, and smoking cessation.
RDAA President, Dr Megan Belot, said: “We are overjoyed to be returning our enormously popular annual conference to a face-to-face format. We will be welcoming doctors, medical students and others from right across Australia, many of whom have not been able to travel out of their communities for large parts of the previous three years. RMA is sure to be a reunion like no other!”
ACRRM President, Dr Sarah Chalmers, said: “The excitement we have felt from rural doctors across the country, as they get ready to attend RMA22, has been incredible! Many of our colleagues have deeply missed the opportunity to connect with peers during the pandemic and are champing at the bit to get to Canberra and all that RMA has to offer. We can’t wait to see everyone on location at RMA22 next month!”
Find the full program for RMA22 by clicking here.
Find the full keynote speaker list for RMA22 by clicking here.
Register for RMA22 here
Media are welcome to attend most sessions at RMA22, but must pre-register by contacting one of the RMA Media Team on the contact numbers below.
Media contacts:
Patrick Daley (RDAA) – 0408 004 890 / media@rdaa.com.au
Ineke Kuiper (RDAA) – 0408 669 638 / comms@rdaa.com.au
Petrina Smith (ACRRM) – 0414 820 847 / p.smith@acrrm.org.au