Annual Scientific Meeting 2022 Report
By Dr Fiona Connelly
2022 Conference Convenor
Image by Dr Amelia Crabtree who captured storyboards of many of the conference sessions. All story boards can be downloaded from the ASM website.
This year’s ASM followed the Golden Jubilee theme of “Redefining Geriatric Giants, a reflection over the changes in Geriatric care, research and services over the last fifty years”.
The uncertainty of COVID-19 meant that it was the first fully virtual conference; and while it was not the preferred format, there were many benefits including more accessible content, increased access to breakfast sessions, the ability to catch up on concurrent sessions at different times and access to content in the months ahead. We even got to meet the pets of the ANZSGM! The ASM attracted the highest number of registrations a Perth ASM has ever had.
International speakers Matteo Cesari and Bruno Vellas shared some great insights into global approaches on supporting healthy ageing through the Integrated Care for Older People approach (ICOPE). They also joined an entertaining panel discussion with our local expert, Prof Ruth Hubbard, on what to do about sarcopenia in practice.
Our Australasian speakers Joe Ibrahim and Michal Boyd delivered a provocative and engaging plenary on residential aged care, encouraging us to step up and stand up for the fundamental changes needed in residential care.
A wide range of other topics were also presented by fabulous speakers highlighting sub specialty areas of geriatric care, as well as an excellent update on long COVID from Dr Claire Steves in Oxford and an engaging plenary on Indigenous health. The breakfast sessions attracted great numbers and Robert Prowse gave us a wonderful recount of the society’s history to date with some surprising facts along the way.
Be sure to catch up on any content you missed on the conference website, content will be available for the next six months.
I extend a big thanks to everyone that submitted abstracts and presented at the conference. The quality of research was fantastic and included great work from medical students and junior doctors as well as our advanced trainees and senior colleagues. Congratulations to this years prizes winners: Dr Stephanie Than Career Investigator Award, Dr Sok Shin Yap for the RM Gibson Prize and Dr James Fletcher for the poster prize – see the winning poster here.
A special thanks must also go to everyone whose hard work allowed the conference to run smoothly and with great success. This includes, but is not limited to, all of the speakers, the Science and Research committee for reviewing the abstracts, judges, session hosts, the professional conference organiser; Arinex and the very talented Amelia Crabtree for her wonderful artwork which captured each session’s content so creatively. Deepest gratitude also goes to the Perth conference organising committee who have been working hard on this conference for the last three years and rolled graciously with all the changes and challenges along the way!
The organising committee would like to thank everyone that registered and attended and although we missed our face to face engagement and the gala dinner, we look forward to welcoming you back to Perth in person in 2029!
We look forward to the great line up in Brisbane next year and wish the conveners every success.
