This is my final President’s Page to you for 2005 and for my term as the ACPSEM President. You should also read my October Annual Council Report to go with this.

1. Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists
   

   ACPSEM has held a second meeting for this year with the Executive of the RANZCR. The Medical Physics Specialty Group Chairmen of Radiology, Don MacLean, Chairman of Radiation Oncology, Peter Metcalfe, and the Vice-President, Howell Round attended this meeting. The meeting was intended to provide an update on progress we are making with ACPSEM professional matters and to ensure that the RANZCR is comfortable and in full support with the future goals we aim to achieve. It was also an opportunity to introduce the in-coming ACPSEM President to Dr Liz Kenny as RANZCR President and Dr Roger Allison, Dean of the Radiation Oncology Faculty.

2. The Department of Health and Ageing
   

   As part of the 2005 Budget announcement for the Australian Government, Minister Costello listed a number of grants to fund initiatives in Strengthening Cancer Care (SCC – an unfortunate acronym since, to many of us, this stands for squamous cell carcinoma!). ACPSEM would like to acknowledge the DoHA work to secure sufficient funds in SCC to encourage Australian radiotherapy centres to establish registrar training positions. The intention was to inject an additional 30 placements over the next three years. So, the current 25 or so registrars who are presently employed in New Zealand and New South Wales is likely to exceed 55 by around 2009.

   Discussions have been held between ACPSEM and DoHA as to how best we can provide adequate training support, supervision, monitoring and assessment of the Training, Education and Accreditation scheme that ACPSEM has established. After consultation with the Chairmen of the Specialty and Accreditation Panel in Radiation Oncology, as well as Council, ACPSEM has submitted a plan to manage and oversee a National ROMP training programme. I hope to hear the result of this by early February.

We have restructured the various ACPSEM professional bodies as agreed (see the appended diagram of the ACPSEM organization). One of the initial steps was to consider and authorize the roles, responsibilities and the delegated authority of each of these bodies. Regular meetings are now arranged by teleconference for each of these bodies and Council has monitored progress at its bimonthly meetings held in April, June, August, October and December.

Perhaps the most delicate part to arrange properly is the individual and interactive roles to play between the Branches and the Specialties. The roles of each have been agreed. A clear understanding of responsibilities and the communication link between the Branches and Specialties is still under discussion. For example, when a specific project or issue is delegated to either the Branches (as a Group) or one (or more) of the Specialties to handle, both must be adequately aware of progress and, if need be, provide support. The President delegates this responsibility to the Head of Branches and the Head of Specialties to manage.

The Honorary Secretary has now updated the ACPSEM Duties and Guidelines document to reflect the new policies and all the changes recently implemented. Members may refer to this document on the website.

ARPANSA recently announced a new Code of Practice for the Exposure of Humans to Ionizing Radiation for Research Purposes. The Victorian Regulators for radiation control have consulted the Victoria/Tasmania ACPSEM Branch concerning medical physicist competency requirements as described in this Code. Since this is relevant to all Australia and New Zealand centres, the Head of Specialties, Tomas Kron, will mediate consultations between the Specialty Chairmen and the Victorian Regulator. I have advised the Branch Chairmen we are all interested stakeholders.

It is very heartening though that Government Authorities are consulting ACPSEM as the ‘Peak’ body for the professions it represents. ACPSEM is fulfilling its mission - To advance services and professional standards in medical physics and biomedical engineering for the benefit and protection of the community.

The progress of DoHA projects can be summarized as follows:

• fast-tracking for Accreditation in Radiation Oncology continues on time;
• all funds for the CPD were used and more could have been used;
• the IMRT courses were very successfully run in conjunction with the RANZCR and EPSM 2005 conferences with substantial contributions provided by the medical physicists. Lois Holloway and Robin Hill were intimately involved in the arrangements. Vendor tutoring will be arranged in February and March and;
• 40 medical physicists from all parts of Australia and New Zealand were able to attend the Monte Carlo courses. This was organized through Clive Baldock and held at the Institute of Medical Physics in the School of Physics, The Sydney University. Apparently, this was a world first where the much acclaimed Monte Carlo research group, led by Dr Dave Rogers, have provided their course outside of Carleton University, Ottawa in Canada.

On behalf of ACPSEM, I thank our overseas and local colleagues for their valuable contributions in each of these projects.

With over $1.5M passing through the books during the year for ACPSEM initiatives and management, we are indebted to our very hard working, conscientious members of the ACPSEM staff. I would like to sincerely thank the General Manager, Kay Tierney, our office assistant, Corinne Price, and our accountant, John Woodger, for their valuable services since the office was first opened in August, 2004.

However, I regret to say that Kay Tierney will be leaving at the end of her contractual term in mid February. Kay indicated to me some time ago that her future aspiration was to begin a PhD thesis. We will be very sorry to lose her very valuable expertise, management skills and very hard work for ACPSEM. It has been tough establishing the office, consulting the members, implementing the management changes that were necessary and overseeing what has been a bumper period of financial management for so many new initiatives.

On behalf of the members, I am happy to convey our thanks to Kay Tierney and wish her well for her future aspirations.

As I announced by email, we are very fortunate to have attracted another excellent candidate to continue as General Manager. Mark Franklin will begin work in the first week of February and Kay will be able to provide Mark some orientation before departing.

You may have noted recently some news coverage on the Productivity Commission’s final report. This is an important Australian document that indicates major reforms and strategic changes in the training, education, management and roles of individual professions employed in the health workforce. The Commission has stated in its report:

ACPSEM provided a submission during the initial inquiry earlier this year and a response to the draft final report last November. These were circulated on the ACPSEM email list and I will ensure that copies are placed on the ACPSEM website. Council must ensure that the outcome of this report satisfies the future strategic direction for our profession. This is likely to extend over quite a long period. The danger being that focus will centre on the larger professions, such as nursing and medical practitioners whilst neglecting the interests of the less visible professions. The ACPSEM profile during this time will be of considerable importance.

Members can obtain further information by visiting the website:
http://www.pc.gov.au/study/healthworkforce/finalreport/index.html

The EPSM Conferences

I think it is fair to say that the success of the EPSM Conferences continued on from Geelong in 2004 to Adelaide in 2005. Around 350 registered for the conference which even caught the Adelaide organisors by surprise! Members from ACPSEM, Engineer Australia, CBME and the Society for Medical and Biological Engineering combined forces to organize EPSM 2005 incorporating the Australian Biomedical Engineer Conference. I congratulate Tim van Doorn and his organizing committees for a very professional and interesting conference. Thank you Adelaide.

And so we move on to EPSM 2006 in Noosa, Queensland and EPSM 2007 in Perth, WA. I urge you to check your website, plan early, book early and support these highly successful events.

My Presidential term of office ends on completion of this report. I thank you all for your interest, support, patience, forbearance in what might be regarded as a period of major changes. I ask that you continue to provide the same energy and enthusiasm to assist the work of Tomas Kron as Vice-President and especially to the new President, Dr Howell Round.

I have previously used material from Dr Norman Peale (Positive Thinking Every Day, Fireside Publications, 1993) and so I will end my report with one of his quotations:

Best wishes to you all in 2006.

Lyn Oliver