QMWS AGM 2021 Report

From our President, Dr Ira van der Steenstraten:

On February 18^th, QMWS had its AGM and first in-person meeting of 2021.

Thank you to all that attended, both at the United Services Club and from all over Australia via Zoom. Being able to have attendees from wider Queensland and even interstate has been a long-standing wish of QMWS that has finally come true. This was a trial, and we will be working hard to make it a recurrent option for attendance.

The evening was proudly sponsored by Avant. Tracy Pickett, Avant’s senior solicitor and medico-legal advisor gave us an overview on how to de-escalate angry patients.

We were very honoured to have many distinguished guests and members coming to listen to our guest speaker David Roland, psychologist, on Post Traumatic Growth. A lively discussion afterwards shows that many of us are interested in this topic, both for our patients and ourselves.

Our online raffle made almost $600 for the QMWS/NCWQ bursary program! Thank you to all who purchased tickets and our lovely committee members (especially Dr Helena Franco and Hannah Hassum) for finding the amazing prizes and Dr Marissa Daniels for setting it up. David has kindly agreed to donate 10% of the proceeds from the books he sold on the evening to the bursary program.

During the official AGM we had to part with some very long standing and much appreciated committee members but we are also very happy to welcome many fresh committee members. All our management positions are filled, and we look forward to a productive year. Please watch out for our newsletters for more information.

As we have not been able to travel for such a long time, we are finding other strategies to look beyond our borders. Our next dinner meeting will be on 27^th May with guest speakers Dr Jillann Farmer, Dr Helena Franco and Mr Brendan Rook on their diverse experiences at the United Nations.

Please make sure to sign up or renew your membership and tell your friends and colleagues about QMWS. We hope to make 2021 a year in which we continuously increase our membership.