November 2023

The following Communiqué highlights the recent activities of the Fellowship Committee as well as discussions from the 04-2023 Fellowship Committee meeting, held on Thursday 9 November 2023.

Honorary Fellowship

• We reviewed a nomination for Honorary Fellowship of the College and have made a recommendation to the Board for the recipient of this honour. We congratulate our recent Honorary Fellowship recipients and thank all nominees for their extraordinary contribution to our College, health and medicine.
• We invite members to nominate any extraordinary people for Honorary Fellowship of the College. More information on our College’s Honorary Fellowship can be found here.

College Awards and Medals

• The nominations for the 2023 College’s Awards and Medals have now been reviewed. We have made recommendations to the Board for the recipients of these prestigious awards.

Gender Equity in Medicine

• The Board has approved the Gender Equity in Medicine Committee’s 2023-2026 Action Plan which will be launched in December.

RACP Congress

• RACP Congress is an important event for the College and an opportunity for us to get together as well as discuss important issues and topics in medicine. We will meet again early next year to continue to plan for Congress 2024.

Leaders in Indigenous Medical Education (LIME) Network Educational Conference

• The LIME Network Conference was held on 22-25 October.
• The College will be sponsoring the LIME Conference in 2024.

RACP 85 Year Anniversary Publication

• To celebrate the 85 year anniversary of RACP, a publication with 85 stories from Fellows and trainees is being collated for print by the Library, Collections and Cultural Heritage Committee.

Get to know your College

Kirsten Butler is our Executive Officer in the Fellowship Relations team. She assists in supporting the Fellowship Committee, College Trainees’ Committee, and the Library, Collections, and Cultural Heritage Committee. Kirsten helps to organise meetings to facilitate important discussions and decision making. Kirsten has been with the College since 2021 joining the Peak Bodies team as the Administration Officer. She was lucky enough to live in London for almost 12 years and while there she worked at the Royal College of Surgeons which was her introduction to membership organisations and medical education.

Happy New Year from the Fellowship Committee

I would like to thank you all for your invaluable contribution during 2023 to continually build and improve our College. I hope you were able to take a well-deserved break and enjoyed the holidays with your family and friends.

Dr Sharmila Ramessur Chandran
Chair, Fellowship Committee 
January 2024

August 2023

The following Communiqué highlights the recent activities of the Fellowship Committee as well as discussions from the 03-2023 Committee meeting, held on Friday 18 August 2023.

Honorary Fellowship

• We reviewed a nomination for Honorary Fellowship of the College and have made a recommendation to the Board for the recipient of this honour. We congratulate our recent Honorary Fellowship recipients and thank all nominees for their extraordinary contribution to our College, health and medicine.
• We invite members to nominate any extraordinary people for Honorary Fellowship of the College. More information on our College’s Honorary Fellowship can be found here.

Gender Equity in Medicine

• We endorsed the Gender Equity in Medicine Committee’s 2023-2026 Action Plan which will co-ordinate College-wide initiatives to implement the Gender Equity in Medicine Working Group Report (PDF) recommendations.

College Awards and Medals

• Nominations for the College’s Awards and Medals are open via this link and close on 30 September 2023. We encourage you to consider any colleagues or members you would like to nominate for these prestigious awards to celebrate their good work and achievements.

RACP Congress

• We continue to progress planning for the future of RACP Congress and are in the process of finalising Congress 2024. Congress is an important event for the College and an opportunity for us to get together as well as discuss important issues and topics in medicine.

Get to know your College

Professor Emeritus Malcolm Sim AM is an Occupational and Environmental Physician and Public Health Physician. He is past President of the Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environmental Medicine of the College and a Professor Emeritus in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. Malcolm established and was Head of the Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health before recently retiring from Monash after 32 years. His main research and professional interests relate to workplace exposures and chronic diseases, including respiratory diseases and cancer. He has a very successful record of obtaining NHMRC and ARC grants and has published over 300 papers.

Malcolm was the previous Editor-in-Chief of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a specialty journal of the BMJ. He is also a former International Commission on Occupational Health Board Member and is a longstanding member of the OHS Advisory Committee of Worksafe Victoria. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was a member of several state and Commonwealth Advisory Committees. He has strong interests in education and training and has played an integral role in improving the AFOEM Fellowship pathway and advocating for Occupational and Environmental Physicians within the College. He is a previous awardee of a College medal.

In 2019 Malcolm was made a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to occupational and environmental medicine.

Dr Sharmila Ramessur Chandran
Chair, Fellowship Committee
August 2023

June 2023

The following Communiqué highlights the recent activities of the Fellowship Committee as well as discussions from the 02-2023 Committee meeting, held on Thursday 8 June 2023.

Honorary Fellowship

• We reviewed nominations for Honorary Fellowship of the College and will be making recommendations to the Board for the recipients of this award. We continue to be grateful and impressed by the calibre of candidates and their extraordinary contribution to our College, health and medicine.
• We encourage you to consider whether there is anyone that you would believe is suitable to nominate for this prestigious honour. More information on our College’s Honorary Fellowship can be found here.

Gender Equity in Medicine

• The Gender Equity in Medicine Committee (GEMC) continue to progress the implementation of the recommendations from the College’s Gender Equity in Medicine Working Group Report (PDF).
• A College Gender Equity in Medicine action plan is in development which the GEMC will be reviewing in the upcoming months.

College Awards and Medals

• The College’s Awards and Medals nominations will be opening soon via this link.
• We encourage you to consider any colleagues or members you would like to nominate for these prestigious awards to celebrate their good work and achievements. 

RACP Congress

• We continue to progress planning for the future of RACP Congress.
• Our aim is to improve the value of Congress to our members which will in turn increase member engagement with our flagship event.

Get to know your College

Professor Nitin Kapur is the current President of the Paediatrics and Child Health Division of the College, a consultant paediatric respiratory and sleep physician at the Queensland Children’s Hospital in Brisbane, Queensland as well as the Director of Paediatric Education and Director of Clinical Training at the same hospital. Nitin’s research interests include CNLD, pre-school wheeze, chronic cough and bronchiectasis.
Nitin moved his young family from India to Canada and then on to Australia which is a significant move for a young doctor. Nitin being ever the optimist says "My life has been fairly smooth. My wife is my high school girlfriend, so I've had a very stable, happy family life. I have been very fortunate, to have met and worked with so many supportive people along the journey.”
Nitin’s deep involvement in the College has proven to be a thoroughly enriching experience, pushing him out of his comfort zone and helped him develop leadership and mentorship skills which has proved invaluable in his clinical and academic duties.

Dr Sharmila Ramessur Chandran
Chair, Fellowship Committee
June 2023

February 2023

The following Communiqué highlights the recent activities of the Fellowship Committee as well as discussions from the 01-2023 Committee meeting, held on Monday 13 February 2023.

Gender Equity in Medicine

• We are pleased to appoint Professor Elizabeth Elliott as the Chair of the Gender Equity in Medicine Committee (GEMC) and look forward to working with them to advance the College’s gender equity in medicine activities.

College Awards and Medals

• We congratulate and acknowledge all the nominees and recipients of the 2022 various College Awards and Medals.
• Further information on the awards and our 2022 recipients can be found here.
• We appreciate the extraordinary achievements and contributions of our members and encourage you to nominate your colleagues to enable us to celebrate the good work of our members.

Leaders in Indigenous Medical Education (LIME) Network Conference Sponsorship

• The College will be sponsoring the LIME Connection X Conference on 22-25 October 2023.
• This conference provides a space to facilitate discussion and innovation in Indigenous health and celebrate successes in the field.
• We encourage you all to attend and participate in the conference and the other valuable initiatives managed by the LIME Network.

RACP Congress

• We held a workshop during our meeting to discuss and plan for the future of RACP Congress.
• Our aim is to make Congress a valuable event for members and improve member engagement with this event.
• We will be proposing some recommendations for the future of Congress to the Board for their consideration and hope that we can commence work to organise Congress 2024 soon. 

Get to know your College

Dr Hashim (Hash) Abdeen is a newly qualified Rheumatologist based in Queensland and has dedicated much of his time advocating for trainees to improve the trainee experience.
Hash was the Chair of the Federal AMA Council of Doctors in Training and was the recipient of the 2022 RACP Trainee of the Year Award. Hash’s commitment to achieving a positive training environment that supports high quality education and training and promotes doctor wellbeing is evident in his extraordinary work and commitment to his roles across the College. Hash is selflessly committed to the College, evident through his various roles including the Chair of the College Trainees’ Committee, trainee representative on the Fellowship Committee as well as a trainee representative on the College Education Committee and Queensland Regional Committee. He is also a Practitioner member on the Queensland Board of the Medical Board of Australia.
Hash is passionate about improving the health system through his leadership and advocacy work and ensuring we continue to identify opportunities that result in improved patient care.

Dr Sharmila Ramessur Chandran
Chair, Fellowship Committee
February 2023

November 2022

The following Communiqué highlights the recent activities of the Fellowship Committee as well as discussions from the 04-2022 Committee meeting, held on Thursday 24 November 2022.

Gender Equity in Medicine

• We're pleased to announce that the Gender Equity in Medicine Committee (GEMC) has now been formed and held their first meeting on 7 December 2022.

RACP Congress

• Unfortunately, we are postponing Congress 2023 as planned for May in Brisbane due to the impact of a concurrent major sporting event on travel and accommodation availability and other logistics.
• The Fellowship Committee will be discussing potential alternative approaches to Congress 2023 at its next meeting in February 2023.

Recognition of member contributions to the College

• We are pleased to have developed a policy that will provide guidelines on how we recognise member contributions to the College. This policy has been approved by the Board at their December 2022 meeting.

RACP 85-Year Anniversary Celebration

• The College will be celebrating its 85th Anniversary in 2023 and the Fellowship Committee along with the Library, Collections and Cultural Heritage Committee will be developing a proposal to commemorate this occasion through a publication that celebrates our members’ stories and diversity.

Sponsorship of Crazy Socks 4 Docs Event

• The Fellowship Committee approved the College to work with Doctors Health Northern Territory (NT) to sponsor and establish events in 2023 to commemorate Crazy Socks 4 Docs day across six public hospitals in the NT.
• This is the first event of this kind in the Northern Territory which aims to raise awareness of the mental health of all doctors and health practitioners. 

Get to know your College

Charlie Burrell is our Executive Officer in the Fellowship Relations team who assists in supporting the Fellowship Committee, College Trainees’ Committee, as well as the Library, Collections, and Cultural Heritage Committee. Charlie helps with organising our meetings to facilitate important discussions and decision making.

Charlie is relatively new with the College since starting in July 2022 but is already an invested team member and appreciates the role the Fellowship Committee plays in influencing member experiences.

Happy New Year from the Fellowship Committee

I would like to wish everyone a happy new year and thank you all for your invaluable contribution during 2022 to continually build and improve our College. I hope you were able to take a well-deserved break and enjoy the holidays with your family and friends.

Dr Sharmila Ramessur Chandran
Chair, Fellowship Committee
January 2023

September 2022

The following Communiqué highlights the recent activities of the Fellowship Committee as well as discussions from the 03-2022 Committee meeting, held on Friday 9 September 2022.

Gender Equity in Medicine

We're pleased to have commenced the appointment of members to the Gender Equity in Medicine Committee and look forward to the Committee’s first meeting.

Recognition of member contributions to the College

• The Fellowship Committee is working on a policy to provide guidelines on recognising member contributions in conjunction with the College’s Gift Giving Policy and Procedure.
• The Fellowship Committee hope to have the policy finalised by the end of the year.

RACP Congress

• We discussed Congress 2022 and how to evolve the College’s strategy to enhance future Congress events for our members.
• The Congress Program Committee have been hard at work to develop the program for Congress 2023 with most shared session topics confirmed.
• Congress 2023 will be held in Brisbane with its theme being ‘Equitable healthcare: taking action’.

RACP Online Community (ROC)

• The ROC will be celebrating its one-year anniversary in ROCtober so please join me in congratulating the College.
• We received an evaluation of the ROC and look forward to the update to the user interface later this year.

Transformational Change

• We received an update on the College’s transformation change activity to achieve our 2022 to 2026 strategy.
• The College has commenced stakeholder engagement and scoping activity to identify focus areas for change and develop a plan to address them.

Get to know your College

My name is Dr Sharmila R Chandran and I'm the current Chair of the Fellowship Committee. My other roles within the college include:

• Member Director on the Board
• Chair of the Member Health and Wellbeing Committee
• Congress Lead Fellow
• member of the Adult Medicine Division Executive Committee and the College Education Committee

I'm a renal physician based in Melbourne.

Originally from Mauritius, I completed medical school in Melbourne before moving to the UK for basic physician training. I then migrated back to Melbourne to undertake renal training and a PhD. At the end, I undertook a clinical fellowship in Toronto. For the last few years, I've focused on upskilling myself in leadership skills. I'm passionate about positive change and a strong advocate for transparent, fair and efficient processes.

I really enjoy being involved with the College and encourage trainees and Fellows to engage with our College to ensure we as members help shape its future.

Dr Sharmila Ramessur Chandran
Chair, Fellowship Committee
September 2022

June 2022

The following Communiqué highlights the recent activities of the Fellowship Committee as well as discussions from the 02-2022 Committee meeting, held on Thursday 9 June 2022.

Gender Equity in Medicine

• We're pleased to have launched the GEMWG report via webinar on 21 June 2022.
• The Fellowship Committee congratulate the GEMWG and thank our President, Dr Jacqueline Small and all the presenters at the webinar for a successful event.
• A recording of the webinar and the GEMWG report is available on the College's Gender Equity in Medicine page.
• Establishment of the Gender Equity in Medicine Committee (GEMC) has commenced, and we look forward to working with the GEMC to implement the recommendations from the GEMWG report.

Recognition of member contributions to the College

• The College is brainstorming ways to recognise member contributions to the College.
• We'd like to express our gratitude to members who volunteer their time and expertise to progress our College's activities.

Member benefits

• The College is partnered with Member Advantage to deliver our members with a range of lifestyle benefits in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand and is undertaking an evaluation of the member benefits program to improve its value to members.
• Members can access these benefits via the Member Advantage website.

RACP Online Community (ROC)

• The Fellowship Committee endorsed the recommendations in the ROC evaluation report.
• The College will be commencing the implementation of the recommendations in the report and continue to evaluate the performance of the ROC.
• We encourage members to visit the ROC to network and discuss topics of interest with your fellow members.

Behind These Doors Macquarie Street building video tour

We're pleased to have launched the Behind These Doors video tour of our College’s Macquarie Street building at Congress 2022.

Explore our College’s Macquarie Street home in Sydney and discover our fascinating treasures and history.

Get to know your College

Jay Jacinto is our Senior Executive Officer in the Fellowship Relations team that manages the day-to-day operations of the Business unit and is responsible for leading, managing and supporting the operations of the Fellowship Committee as well as the:

• College Trainees' Committee
• Gender Equity in Medicine Working Group
• Library, Collections, and Cultural Heritage Committee

Jay helps us navigate the College and assists the Fellowship Committee to progress our work and activities. Jay has been with the College since 2017 and values the importance of working together to improve our member experience.

Dr Sharmila Ramessur Chandran
Chair, Fellowship Committee
July 2022

February 2022

The following Communiqué highlights the recent activities of the Fellowship Committee as well as discussions from the 01-2022 Committee meeting, held on Thursday 10 February 2022.

Gender Equity in Medicine

The Gender Equity in Medicine Working Group (GEMWG) report and recommendations were approved by the Board at their December 2021 meeting. The Fellowship Committee is currently reviewing a draft Terms of Reference to establish a Gender Equity in Medicine Committee that will be tasked with developing an action plan to implement the recommendations from the report.

The College is also planning a campaign to launch the GEMWG report in the upcoming months and anticipates to utilise this opportunity to promote and invite members to join the new Gender Equity in Medicine Committee.

Congress 2022 progress update

The Fellowship Committee were pleased to see new representatives joining the Congress Program Committee and received an update on the Congress 2022 program and speakers. We discussed and provided advice on planning for Congress 2022 and following our meeting, the Board approved a hybrid model for Congress, which will be held in person at Melbourne and Auckland as well as online between Thursday 12 and Saturday 14 May.

The Fellowship Committee would like to encourage you to participate by registering for Congress 2022 

Review of Fellowship Committee Awards criteria

The Fellowship Committee recently reviewed the criteria for several of the Colleges Awards and Medals and agreed to include additional criteria to recognise altruistic endeavours by our members when reviewing nominations for these awards.

Please join us in congratulating and acknowledging all the nominees and recipients of the 2021 College Awards and Medals. We were impressed at the quality of nominations received for our awards and would like to encourage our members to continue with all your outstanding work.

See more information about the College Awards and Medals and the 2021 recipients, see College and Congress prizes.

145 Macquarie Street Video Tour

The College has undertaken a project to develop a video tour of its 145 Macquarie Street building to showcase the rich history of the College. Filming for the video tour has recently been completed and recording of the narration for the video is currently being organized with the Chair of the Library Collections and Cultural heritage Committee. The College’s 145 Macquarie Street video tour will be launched during Congress 2022.

Dr Sharmila Ramessur Chandran
Chair, Fellowship Committee
March 2022