Page 6 - ANZCP Gazette-August-Booklet

PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Rob Baker PhD, CCP, FANZP
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Mid-year and are we where we thought we might be? I looked back at my January report, we didn’t know what was around the corner. As I write this report the borders around Victoria have closed for the first time since federation, creating a landscape that none of us thought possible only months ago. We have seen Australia and New Zealand respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in an organised, albeit at times, very controlled (or controlling) manner but with the best interest of our entire populations at hand. Many, if not all of our membership, have been involved in dealing with COVID-19 at their hospitals in some manner. For many of us it has been largely in the planning phase, redesigning our model of care to ensure that we could safely handle an influx of COVID-19 patients, while others have been involved in the day to day management of the sickest of COVID patients who have been supported by ECMO. The College has provided some support through our website, a whatsapp group and a webinar, but as we continue this unmapped road, please reach out to the Executive if you need any further support or have ideas on how the College can be of more assistance.
There are however, many positives to report from within our College. Firstly we congratulate those students who have recently completed their final examinations in the ABCP Structured Course in Perfusion program and have passed their CCP examinations, and we welcome them as Fellows of the College. Similarly for students currently undertaking the course we congratulate you on your recent achievements.
We also welcome our initial group of Overseas Trained Perfusionists to be formally recognised by the ABCP through the Colleges OTP Equivalency Recognition program. It is fantastic for perfusion in our region to have twelve perfusionists with such a wealth of experience become Fellows of our College. It is excellent recognition of their training and commitment to our profession and we look forward to their continuing contribution to perfusion in our region.
For those beginning or considering a career in perfusion, it really is an exciting time in our profession as the scope of practice for perfusionists continues to broaden and the College and the Board strive to improve the education offerings that we can make available. If you are enrolled in the Structured Course in Cardiovascular Perfusion, the ABCP is working hard to ensure that the course is kept up to date and that everyone enrolled will have the opportunity to complete their studies and their examinations. In the current climate the commitment that we are making to all our students is that we will do everything possible to ensure that all expectations are able to be met with respect to completing current courses.
Plans for the academic component of training to move back to a University are developing with our collaboration with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Please take the time to read our open letter about these plans in this issue of the Gazette. Talking about training, current students
will have the opportunity in November to present their research projects on line as part of the College’s plan to run a virtual Annual Scientific Meeting. However this meeting unfolds in 2020, there will be an opportunity for our students to showcase their work. We are fortunate to have Killian O’Shaughnessy, Emerson Sgammotta, Richard Newland and Kuljeet Farrar collaborating to develop an on line ASM meeting for the College. Watch the website for information as it becomes available. It is probably a good time for everyone to start putting our 2021 ASM dates, November 11th–13th, Cairns, in your diary. We will be having a combined meeting with our colleagues from Cardiac Surgery and Anaesthesia; the meeting will also feature the International Society of Minimally Invasive Cardiac surgery (ISMICS).
The biggest visible change for the College has been the launch of our new website – same address, new design, new resources, and hopefully something for everybody. You should have experienced some interaction with the new website as membership fees have been handled on-line via the new website this year. There are many new features and we will be rolling out more changes and updates as the year progresses, if you see something you want incorporated please contact Andrea Hunt [ANZCP Administrative Officer] at admin@anzcp.org. I would also like to thank Andrea, on behalf of the College, for all the work she has put into the setting up of this website.
Serving is often considered to be the cornerstone of good leadership, and a healthy indicator of how well we as a College are working for our membership is in the number of people coming forward to serve the College. Recently Adam Roshan who has served on the ABCP for a couple of years has had to step down and we welcome Alex Peterson (Auckland City Hospital) to the vacant position. We thank Adam for his willingness to serve and we look forward to him serving again in the future.
To be a successful College we need to all continually set goals, both as individual clinicians and as a community – support your College by helping us determine clear goals for the College and then working together to achieve these.
Thank you for your ongoing support of the College with your membership and I hope that we can all continue working together to improve the care and service that we give to our patients each and every day.
Sincerely,
President, ANZCP
3 SEPTEMBER 2020 | www.anzcp.org