March 2021 - March 2024
President’s Message

President’s Message

Welcome to another ANZSGM Newsletter and my final report as President.  It has been an interesting two years.  Thinking back to the Adelaide ASM in May 2019, there were a number of pressing issues (notably very specific to Australia) including MBS reform with potential loss of the CGA item numbers, better defining the role of the geriatrician in areas which most of us would consider core business in  perioperative and rehabilitation medicine; and the threatened abolition of ACAT.  This was all in the context of the relatively recently commenced Royal Commission.  There were also internal issues to think about as a Society and as a Council in particular – especially as we had observed the challenges faced by the RACP following its transition to a “professional” board structure and the involvement of the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission in reviewing College activity.

New challenges have arisen – COVID-19, the forced postponement of the Melbourne ASM, the prolongation of the Royal Commission and the retirement of Lynda Donaldson, who had of course served as our executive officer for a decade.  How well have we responded to these challenges?

It would seem that our case for maintaining the CGA item numbers has been accepted by the MBS review at this point in time – notably our position was supported by both the RACP and the AMA in their submissions on the matter.  In terms of our role in perioperative medicine, the commencement of our first special interest group as a society in this discipline is an important step in clarifying our key position as a profession in providing perioperative care.  Similarly, we are working to better define the key role geriatricians can play in leading multidisciplinary rehabilitation services for older people and this work will need to be ongoing.

The Royal Commission findings were released a short time ago – it has been surprising to me that there has been very little media interest – perhaps the volume and scope of the proposed changes has overwhelmed everyone.  In our initial media release, we very much focused on the concept of RACFs being supported by local Geriatrician led outreach teams. This model exists in some form in some places, but needs to be scaled and sustainably funded, ideally through reform to the National Health Reform Agreement to avoid the patchwork of cobbled together funding arrangements that currently exist.  If this were in place it would solve many of the clinical difficulties older people face in aged care, and properly recognise that older people’s access to aged care services is driven by medical need and multiple morbidity – rather than a lifestyle choice.  As an aside there still seems to be a drive to have single assessment for access, which would fundamentally change ACAT/ACAS in Australia, and it is unclear what role if any geriatricians will have in the process.

Internally we completed a formal recruitment process for our Executive Officer and were fortunate to secure the services of Alison King.  Alison has had previous experience with the RACP and significant experience in senior governance roles in a variety of organisations.  It has been a great pleasure to work closely with her over the last several months and there is significant modernisation of how things are run in the office.  We are very committed to providing more support to the operations of the divisions, and ensuring that divisions remain robust and dynamic is critical to the ongoing success of the Society – this work is now progressing.  Jo Dunlop has continued to prove her worth in her position supporting communications and policy and without her the role of Council would be much more challenging!  We have also been fortunate to have Tyrone Prins working with us in a locum capacity while Jean Hannon is on maternity leave.  Vasi – I feel I am handing over a highly functioning team!

It is also worth noting that the Society has positive working relationships with many other organisations which has been especially important over the last two years.  We have strong collaborative approaches to working with the RACP, AMA and the AAG.  We are also in the process of reaching a formal non-financial agreement with the Health Round Table to work closely together to better inform quality improvement efforts across Australia and New Zealand.

Thanks must go out to all of Council for their ongoing hard work and commitment to the Society, especially to the chairs of our committees who commit so much time to these roles.  Also, to the organisers of the postponed Melbourne ASM – their willingness to work so hard so that we can meet in a few months in Melbourne has been outstanding.  Special thanks must be made to Professor Vasikaran Naganathan who has been hugely supportive in his role of President-elect – our weekly discussions leave me confident our handover will be a smooth process.  Finally, thanks to all our member geriatricians and trainees – especially those of you in Victoria who have managed a difficult time with such tremendous professionalism.  I’m proud to be a geriatrician – hopefully I’ll see you all either in the virtual or in Melbourne in May!

JM

2021 ANZSGM Annual Scientific Meeting

2021 ANZSGM Annual Scientific Meeting

It is with delight that we welcome you to the rejuvenated 2021 ANZSGM Annual Scientific Meeting, to be held from the 19th-21st May 2021 at the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins. Your safety is our priority; therefore the conference can also be attended virtually if you are unable to attend in-person.

’20/20 Hindsight: Vision for the Future will provide a platform to reflect on the lessons from 2020 and an opportunity look forward to the future with new eyes.  There will be updates on dementia and delirium along with sessions on the interface between geriatric medicine and other specialties. We will be exploring topical issues such as the COVID-19 response in residential aged care, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and the implementation of Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation in Victoria.

There will be a mixture of live-streamed sessions, live Q&A, pre-recorded sessions, and panel discussions. Sessions will be recorded and available to view On-Demand for 90 days after the conference.

We, along with our speakers, remain committed to bringing you a stellar scientific program and we sincerely hope you can attend either in-person or online. 

To view the conference program and for registration information, please visit the conference website at http://www.anzsgmconference.org/.

Thank you for your ongoing support of the ANZSGM.

Best Wishes,

Dr Rajni Joseph & Dr Louise Monk
2021 Conference Co-Convenors

Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety Final Report

Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety Final Report

The Final Report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was released on Friday 26th February marking the culmination of two years of inquiry into the state of Australia’s aged-care sector.

ANZSGM is satisfied that the report adequately acknowledges the range of health problems of older people in aged care homes and the need for multidisciplinary health services.

“It is clear that the Royal Commission understands that older people in aged care homes require expert medical and nursing care,” says ANZSGM President Dr John Maddison.

“It is vital that the complex medical needs of older people in aged care are met with a future primary healthcare plan that includes multi-disciplinary outreach health services.

ANZSGM strongly supports the Royal Commission’s proposed plan for state and territory governments to agree upon the introduction and funding of local hospital network-led outreach health services for residents of aged care homes. This model would enhance coordination and ensure a wider range of health services to improve the quality of life for older people.

“There is enormous value in outreach teams run by geriatricians and nurses with expertise in aged care, operating through state run health services; this needs to become a standard model of care within all local health districts,” says Dr Maddison.

Geriatric medicine services with local health districts have been aware of this issue for several years and in response have provided geriatrician and aged care nursing expertise to support aged care staff and GPs in providing better health care for residents in aged care homes.

“There are examples across the country of well-developed outreach team models that are running successfully and effectively, and they must continue to be developed.” added Dr Maddison.   

Older people enter aged care homes for medical reasons, but the care they receive does not always meet their medical needs. The Royal Commission’s examination of aged care in Australia has clearly understood this fact, exposing a system that requires extensive reform.

View the Final Report here  

ANZSGM welcomes new members

ANZSGM welcomes new members

The Society welcomes the following new members who were endorsed at the Council meeting on 30th November 2020.

Victoria
Valerie Co (AT),
Ji Hao Hui (AT)
Tessa O’Halloran (AT)
Sriamareswaran Rumes (AT)
Celia Ting (Full)

NSW
Neeraja Vadali (AT)
Lisa Nguyen-Lal (Full)
Sara Khan (Assoc)

New Zealand
Holly Mee (AT)

Western Australia
Colleen Taylor (Full)

Membership reminders

Membership reminders

For any queries regarding invoices or owed membership fees, please contact our Membership Officer via members@anzsgm.org.  Click here to pay online on our website.

Please note that the second page of your invoice relates to your contact details and the authorities and permissions that you give the society regarding management of this information. Please update this when you pay your subs online.  

We urge you to be included in the members directory, please note that:  

  • Work details are only visible to ANZSGM members 
  • Home details are visible only to the ANZSGM Secretariat unless you give permission  
  • The Member Directory is not visible to the public.  

Please email any updated details to members@anzsgm.org  

Update: The Perioperative Care of Older People Special Interest Group (SIG)

Update: The Perioperative Care of Older People Special Interest Group (SIG)

The SIG is off to a keen start following its endorsement by Council in August 2020. Over 60 ANZSGM members have expressed an interest in being part of the group and attendance at the first quarterly meeting for the year on 17th February was very strong.

Four working groups have been formed within the SIG including: Position Statement & External Liaison; Education; Research; Development of Curriculum/Training; and Fellowships. Co-leads for each group have been identified and work plans are being formed.

If you would like to be part of the group but have not yet signed up, please email Jo Dunlop communications@anzsgm.org.  

ANZSGM History Project Update

ANZSGM History Project Update

The positive progress mentioned last year was indeed stymied by the pandemic, interstate travel was restricted longer than I seem to have expected.  This was particularly because Melbourne is the site of probably the most useful unexplored documents relating to the period prior to 1984, including the archives of the Australian Association of Gerontology.

One of the important tasks of the project is to update and correct existing historical records. Once finalized, many of these can return to the History pages on the website. A review of these documents shows that two are completed and six nearly so.

One of the areas of particular interest are details of Annual Scientific Meetings.  Last year I reported that we had relatively detailed knowledge of most ASMs since the meeting in Adelaide in 1984.  Looking at the records prior to this, following the inauguration of the Society in 1972, I was somewhat surprised to find that I have at least some information of scientific meetings in the 1970s but overall, none of 8 Annual Scientific Meetings.  I trust that a visit to the AAG archives will help fill some of these gaps, as the Society meetings were largely held in conjunction with the AAG in this period.  However, older members may come across some useful information and for this reason I advise that the missing years are: 1974 and 1975; 1977 and 1978 and the first four years of the 1980s (1980-1983).

One interesting document in the RACP archive, an Advance (sic) Program for the 1981 College ASM in Wellington (NZ) lists the Australian Geriatrics Society as attending, but there was no mention an AGS session in the final program.

I am now confident (one can never be certain concerning history) that I have identified all the Honorary Life Members of the Society.  There have been 26 Honorary Life Memberships awarded, from 1991 to 2019, of whom 16 are living.

In working to identify all Honorary Life Members (HLMs), the most interesting was the case of Margaret Guthrie.  Margaret was the first (and, as it happened, the only) life member of the New Zealand Geriatrics Society, a Public Health Physician who began working in the Health of Older People in 1973 and has wide interests, including in health policy and service development.  When I began searching the Society’s records in the Sydney office in 2019, I found a letter from Margaret, written in 2008, two years after the amalgamation of the Australian and New Zealand Societies, accepting the ANZSGM’s offer of an Honorary Life Membership of the amalgamated Society.  At that time, Dr Guthrie was not listed as an Honorary Life Member and I could find, and have still not found, formal evidence of her being awarded life membership.  However, Margaret was one of a group of HLMs who contributed brief commentaries of their interests and work in geriatric medicine to a Newsletter in May 2009 (currently not available on the website) and we later discovered a list of HLMs in 2012 on which she was listed!  Many of those who had been involved with the award could not recall how, or even whether, it had occurred.

This is a useful exemplar of the importance of accurate records, their proper maintenance and the fallibility of memory in busy people, even geriatricians!

As the current practice is to award medals to HLMs it was arranged for the New Zealand Division to present one to Margaret, who, in her mid-90s remains well and interested in gerontology, in part to compensate for having “lost” such a senior and respected member from the Society.  The NZ Division has this in hand.

I will update members of the outcome of my Melbourne researches once I have managed them.  As usual, can I remind you that I would welcome any memories, anecdotes, documents and photographs, however apparently trivial, you come across that you consider would be useful, especially about the early days of the Society.

Robert J Prowse
prowserj@bigpond.net.au

In Memoriam: Dr Richard Geeves OAM (1924 – 2020) 

In Memoriam: Dr Richard Geeves OAM (1924 – 2020) 

Dr Richard Banks Geeves (Dick) was born in 1924 and grew up in Pennant Hills in northern Sydney where his father Cuthbert Geeves was in general practice. He enlisted in the Australian Army at the completion of his schooling, and after training was deployed to Madang in New Guinea. He was discharged with typhus, dengue and depression, and on recovery in 1945 studied medicine at the University of Sydney.  

After his graduation from medicine in 1950, he moved to Newcastle to do his residency at Newcastle Hospital, and in 1955 he joined his father in general practice in Pennant Hills.  

In 1968 he recognised that there was a significant gap in the care of older people and people with a disability living in the community. At that time, whilst remaining in general practice, he was appointed as honorary community physician at Hornsby District Hospital. With strong support from his specialist and general practitioner colleagues including Dr RM (Dick) Gibson whom he had met whilst in Newcastle, he proceeded to develop a multidisciplinary team providing geriatric and rehabilitation services in the community. This team was allocated a hospital cottage which became a day rehabilitation centre, one of the earliest such medical rehabilitation centres in Sydney. 

In 1974 the NSW Health Commission supported the development of a salaried Community Geriatric and Rehabilitation Service at Hornsby Hospital, and Dick left general practice and became a full time physician at the Hospital. He proceeded to develop a larger community team, and went on to develop a 26 bed inpatient rehabilitation ward, day hospital, and well equipped outpatient unit in the Palmerston Building. He also designed and built a 60 bed transitional care and respite nursing home on the hospital grounds. These were all opened in 1975. His ability to network and raise money was legendary, and he was instrumental in raising funds for the nursing home, ward, day hospital and clinic. 

Dick considered that the best care for older people was provided by services working together and he brought the home nursing service, home help services, meals on wheels, and day activity centres under the umbrella of the Geriatric and Rehabilitation Service. He linked closely to local nursing homes through his nursing home liaison team, and had a band of more than a thousand volunteers who enthusiastically assisted in both the hospital and community. He insisted that the older person’s general practitioner stayed at the centre of care, with all services requiring a GP referral. This was true integrated care, 40 years before the term became trendy. 

Dick felt strongly that community stereotypes of ageing involving deterioration and dependency needed to be overturned, and he developed educational programs for hospital and community staff, for volunteers and family members, and for older people themselves, to encourage activity and good health into old age. He understood that older people wanted to be cared for at home rather than in an institution, and ensured that the Geriatric and Rehabilitation Service promoted this philosophy. He conceived the idea of a dementia respite day centre and implemented the centre in the early 1980s. This has subsequently expanded to a highly regarded service with carer support, education and in home respite roles. The centre at North Turramurra now carries his name. 

In 1986 Dick was asked to pilot a Geriatric Assessment Team for the Commonwealth Department of Health, using his well developed model of multidisciplinary community assessment and care. This model became the basis for all future Aged Care Assessment Teams across Australia, and the Hornsby team continues to this day as one of the busiest in NSW. 

Dick developed the concept of an integrated Aged Care and Rehabilitation Service that provides coordinated services to older people across both hospital and community. The success of the Service in the 1980s ensured that it was used as a model for geriatric services in NSW and beyond. His work was recognised with life membership of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine, and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, and with the award of the Medal of the Order of Australia. His contribution to geriatric and rehabilitation medicine in Australia has been immense, and his influence continues through the generations of geriatricians and rehabilitation physicians who have trained in their formative years in the Hornsby service.  

As per the rules at the time, he was required to retire at age 65, and after his retirement from Hornsby Hospital in 1989 he and his wife moved to Geeveston in Tasmania where they purchased an old Geeves family house “Hartzview” in Port Huon. Never one to slow down, Dick was involved in developing a new role for the Geeveston area after the closure of the large paper mill that had provided work for so much of the region. Together with other locals, he worked on creating a woodworking hub for Geeveston, and the famous Tahune Airwalk was part of that development, showcasing the Huon River and its wonderful forests, and attracting large numbers of tourists. He rapidly became a local identity through his involvement in these ventures, and his appearances on the ABC’s Landline, and in Forestry Tasmania advertisements on the backs of local buses. 

In 2018, he was the special guest at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Geriatric and Rehabilitation Service (now the Rehabilitation and Aged Care Service) where his achievements over his time at Hornsby were showcased. It was clear that he had been well ahead of his time with his thinking about geriatric medicine, and his design and development of services has shaped the landscape of geriatric medicine in Australia.  

Dick continued living in his home after the death of his wife in 2002 and remained an integral part of the community even having a street named after him. He was independent and living at home until ten days before his death in hospital on the 18th July 2020.

By Professor Susan Kurrle

Photo by Andrew Wilson

Opinion: Specialisation in the era of chronic illness by Dr Ludomyr Mykyta

Dr Ludomyr Mykyta is an ANZSGM past president, he has had a long career in geriatric medicine with a strong interest in the management of dementia in all settings. 

2020 and the COVID Crisis will never be forgotten. It was and continues to be the greatest challenge that the healthcare systems of all nations around the world have ever had to face. The way that these systems are structured, staffed, organised, managed, delivered, and funded has been shown to be of critical importance. The power of misinformation has also been shown to be a huge obstacle to effective delivery.

As a Specialty we have been subjected to scrutiny and have provided evidence to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which is due to deliver its final report this month.

Entering a new year is a good opportunity for introspection and considering who we have become, how we have evolved, and what should be our role in the future healthcare system. I was present in the infancy of Geriatric Medicine in Australia and am still actively practising it in 2021.Long ago I become convinced that there is only one legitimate specialty based on age. That is Paediatric Medicine which is generally defined to cover the period from infancy to the age of 18 years. This is the period in which we grow and develop to maturity in every way including neuropsychologically.

We have stood by and allowed the creation and perpetuation of a large and growing proportion of the adult population, people over 65 as a discriminated against minority group. What is discrimination in this context?   Discrimination in any context is defined as: “The act of denying rights, benefits, justice, equitable treatment, or access to facilities available to all others, to an individual or group of people because of their race, age, gender, handicap or other defining characteristic.  (Webster’s New World Law Dictionary)”. To put it simply, it is treating old people differently than other adults in a similar predicament.

Our practice in dealing with disturbed behaviour in Residential Aged Care facilities exemplifies the issue.

I have always visited people in residential facilities to assist in the management of disturbed behaviour “the BPSDs” in nursing homes and have done so throughout the COVID crisis.  In recent times, everyone that I have seen had already been seen by DBMAS. There is a letter signed by a highly qualified specialist – a very influential clinical expert whose opinion is supported by Dementia Support Australia.

The “assessment”, is not conducted by the clinical expert and is largely based on populist benevolent mythology and not based on knowing and understanding an individual human being. The advice is similarly populist and generic, and the prescribing advice suggests homeopathic doses of psychoactive medication given with a complete lack of understanding of the individual’s predicament. There is no sense of urgency in dealing with a crisis confronting a distressed individual and equally or more distressed partner and carers.  All this is happening to someone who is in the palliative phase of the illness (multifactorial syndrome) where prescribing rules must be adapted to reality.

I almost never give a clinical opinion on a living person that I have not at the very least sighted and attempted to engage in communication. How else would I be able to answer the question put to me by a Court or a Tribunal, “Doctor, what did you find when you examined the patient”? The ethics of this approach is highly questionable and certainly not an example of best practice.   Would a middle-aged schizophrenic who stopped taking his medication and became violent and aggressive have been dealt with in this way?

This has led to an ACRC interim recommendation that greatly limits the prescription of psychoactive medication and is doing more harm than good.

Marjorie Warren, “the mother of geriatrics” in the UK, introduced comprehensive assessment and rehabilitation to a previously ignored group, who were not all old people. These practices are applicable to people with all types of disability at any age.

As soon as I returned to Australia, I applied these practices personally and through the services that I developed. In South Australia there was a period when Adelaide was covered by four Regional Domiciliary Care and Rehabilitation Services that looked after thousands of people in all situations, homes, hospitals, and clinics.

Why I suggest we should look at what we have become is because we have not evolved, but devolved to being just another hospital and clinic-bound super specialty of internal medicine.

I began doing rural visits about half a century ago. I quickly learned that rural communities and their general practitioners were not looking for general medical support, but help in dealing with dementia and disability. I began to focus almost entirely on dementia. There has always been a demand and referrals that I have never been able to keep up with. In many situations I became the psychiatrist of last resort, because I was prepared to see younger people face-to-face in their own communities in a timely fashion, unlike the Mental Health Services.

I believe that as the specialty of Geriatric Medicine, our niche is the management of dementia in all situations, and the management of complex chronic syndromes in all settings and at any age. We understand that all chronic progressive illness must be analysed and managed  from the Bio-Psycho-Social perspective that recognises that we are dealing with a unique individual in a unique predicament, which includes being in a deep relationship with a life partner, relative or friend.

The knowledge base and technology base of healthcare, which is much more than just Medicine, has grown and continues to grow exponentially in the last two centuries. Unfortunately, the Healthcare System, the way it is structured, organised, staffed, funded, administered, and delivered remains firmly entrenched in the 19th century.

The management of hospitals in the healthcare system has succumbed to managerialism, and CEOs and Executive Officers are no longer clinical.

Health Care, and Aged Care are no longer services and elements of the Welfare State that we purport to be. They are businesses. There is no public service. The most important tier of Health Care, Primary Care is also being commercialised in line with business model.

Years ago, at an international Gerontology Conference, a PhD student was interviewing geriatricians and asked me why I became a geriatrician. I said that it was the job satisfaction, because every day I had a big win when some very minor piece of advice, such as teaching someone to use a walking frame, made a huge difference to that person’s sense of independence. I live in hope.

Image courtesy: David Mariuz
Policies and Reports

Policies and Reports

New Zealand Aotearoa Aged Residential Care Pandemic Response Policy
In December 2020, New Zealand’s Ministry of Health published the New Zealand Aotearoa Aged Residential Care Pandemic Response Policy online, – a nationally consistent guidance for aged residential care stakeholders to prepare for, prevent and respond to any epidemic or pandemic. The Policy is part of the Ministry’s work to deliver the action plan for the recommendations of the independent review of COVID-19 clusters in ARC facilities. It can be tailored to local environments as required and provides a framework that should be followed. https://www.health.govt.nz/publication/new-zealand-aotearoa-pandemic-response-policy-aged-residential-care

The 2nd Interim Evaluation Report on the Health Care Homes program has been published. You can access the report on the Health Care Homes Evaluation website. The Department of Health has contracted Health Policy Analysis to undertake the evaluation who are working with the University of NSW and the University of Technology. 

The Asia Pacific Consortium on Osteoporosis (APCO) has launched the first pan-Asia Pacific clinical practice standards for the screening, diagnosis, and management of osteoporosis. Published in Osteoporosis International, ‘The APCO Framework’ comprises 16 minimum clinical standards that will serve as a benchmark for the provision of optimal osteoporosis care in the region. The APCO Framework is set to achieve greater consistency in clinical practice guidelines across Asia Pacific, for more information visit www.apcobonehealth.org.

The British Geriatrics Society launched the Silver Book II on Monday 22 February at 9am (UK time). The Silver Book II, written by leading international experts in frailty, addresses a wide range of urgent care issues specific to older people. Aimed at clinicians and other healthcare professionals working in emergency departments and urgent care, this updated resource is presented in a highly accessible digital format and is free of charge. It follows the first edition of the Silver Book which was published in 2012 and has been downloaded over 200,000 times.

The focus of the Silver Book II is on care for older people over the first 72 hours of an urgent care episode, with the specific remit to:

  • Help decrease variation in practice
  • Influence the development of appropriate services across urgent care systems
  • Identify and disseminate best practice
  • Influence policy development
Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

CDP Requirements for 2021
The Medical Board of Australia and The Medical Council of New Zealand have decided that medical practitioners will need to resume meeting CPD requirements from 2021.

Please review the RACP 2021 MyCPD framework to ensure you are familiar with your requirements and explore the College’s CPD resources in the MyCPD Interactive Handbook and the Online Learning Resources platform.

Please don’t hesitate to contact the CPD Team if you have any questions

AU: 1300 697 227 or MyCPD@racp.edu.au
NZ: 64 4 460 8122 or MyCPD@racp.org.nz

New Online Course: Chronic Breathlessness in Advanced Illness
Equip yourself with the knowledge you need to better identify, assess and manage chronic breathlessness in advanced illness through the RACP’s new online course. Watch this video from the online course which explores something many of us find challenging: answering sensitively and truthfully when a patient wants to know how they’re going to die.

RACP online courses are designed to enable you to engage when you want, pause and jump back in when it suits you, or simply focus on specific parts that are relevant to you. Optimised for on-the-go use on your mobile or tablet, and developed by members, for members, the interactive nature of RACP online courses enables you to learn from your peers. 
Link to course: https://elearning.racp.edu.au/course/view.php?id=253
Link to video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wArV8Ho_C1A&t=10s

Image Courtesy RACP

RACP COVID-19 Vaccination Series

RACP COVID-19 Vaccination Series

RACP Congress 2021 brings you another engaging and informative session in the COVID-19 Vaccination series.

 

Chaired by Associate Professor Megan Rees and featuring speakers, Dr Chia Chong and Professor Kanta Subbarao, this series will explore the latest in vaccine science and provide an update on rollouts and what you should know.

 

Exploring the effectiveness of current vaccines, new strains, and real world data, this session will provide a comprehensive look at what we know.

 

This session will also explore the vaccine uptake and continue to build on what we have learned regarding strategies to address vaccine hesitancy, ways to discuss vaccines with patients, and provide useful strategies to address vaccine hesitancy within the community.

When: Thursday 25th March 2021
6pm-7.30pm AEDT
8pm-9.30pm NZDT
Where: Online
Cost: Free
RSVP: Register HERE

About your speakers
Associate Professor Megan Rees is a Respiratory and Sleep Physician with an interest in pulmonary infections. Her undergraduate medical degree is from the University of Melbourne, DTMH (Lond) and physician training was completed in the UK (MRCP) and FRACP and advanced training in Respiratory and Sleep Medicine in Australia.

Megan Rees is a consultant physician in Respiratory, Sleep and General Medicine at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and is the RMH lead for the Australian Bronchiectasis Registry. Professor Rees is the co-chair of the Respiratory Infectious Diseases Special Interest Group of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand and a member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians COVID-19 Expert Advisory Group. Megan is a member of the Disease-Modifying Treatment and Chemo-prophylaxis Panel of the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce.

Professor Kanta Subbarao is the Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza and Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. She is a virologist and a physician with specialty training in paediatrics and paediatric infectious diseases. Prior to her arrival in Melbourne, she was a senior scientist at the US National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr Chia Chong MBBS FRACP is a Consultant Geriatrician member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. She is a geriatrician working in both hospital and community settings at Eastern Health, Victoria. She is co-author of the position statement Immunisation for Older People from the Australian and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine (ANZSGM).

Revisit the past COVID-19 Vaccination series webinars.
The previous sessions of the COVID-19 Vaccination series are now available for RACP member viewing. To view the previous sessions, select the link below:

25/02 Webinar – Australian vaccine rollout
10/03 Webinar – AoNZ vaccine rollout

Save the date
Final Session: Thursday, 22 April 2021

Please note: a copy of the recording with be accessible via NZCPHM for RACP non-members.

AJA Latest Issue

AJA Latest Issue

An overview of the AJA March Issues: Volume 40 (1)
We welcome our new Editor in Chief, Professor Debra Waters as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Journal.

The Journal continues to address contemporary topics in gerontology and geriatrics. For example, this Issue features an Invited Editorial reflecting on the mental health of residents of aged care facilities within the context of COVID-19 and the Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. There’s an article on the development of a clinical screening tool for identifying COVID-19 in residential care and a brief report on the impact of COVID-19 on quality of life in community based aged care recipients. Dr Susan Ogle reflects upon kindness in the time of COVID-19.

An Editorial that accompanies our most recent Virtual Issue on the topic of healthy ageing within rural and remote settings gives an overview of the ongoing challenges and some of the interventions employed to date.

We include a systematic review on foot disease and physical function and another on self-management programs in older people with knee osteoarthritis.

The complete Table of Contents and all articles can be accessed (subject to membership) at
Australasian Journal on Ageing (wiley.com)

We hope that this issue will assist in guiding your research and practice. We welcome contributions from you about your innovative work. We also welcome expressions of interest for Associate Editor roles. Without the ongoing valuable contributions of this great team, we wouldn’t be able to deliver the journal to our members and readers.:  – please refer to the advert in this Issue and contact Professor Waters debra.waters@otago.ac.nz

Jane Sims, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, AJA.

Job Alert – Geriatrician role Southerland Shire NSW

Job Alert – Geriatrician role Southerland Shire NSW

The Salus Clinic, Brellah Medical Centre, Sutherland Shire is looking for a full-time or part-time geriatrician.

Brellah is a patient centric model of healthcare, focusing on changing the way medical services are provided in Australia. Patients are encouraged and supported by a team of clinicians and health professionals that embrace data analytics and collaborative care to drive better health outcomes.

A Brellah Geriatrician provides long-term and continuous care to patients and aims to develop an ongoing relationship with them and their family/ carers, which can lead to an increased sense of respect and trust. 

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