Medical Council elects new President

The Dean of the University of Otago Faculty of Medicine, Professor John Campbell, has been elected President of the Medical Council of New Zealand.

Public health physician Dr Deborah Read has been elected Deputy President.

The election held on 18th February was also the first meeting for three newly elected members, Dr Pippa MacKay, Dr Kate O’Connor and Dr Barnett Bond. Dr Philip Barham was reselected for a second term.

Major issues for the Council over the coming year include the HPCA Bill currently passing through the Select Committee, promoting understanding of the Act and the work of the Council and further Council work in the area of culture competence and sexual boundaries.

Background information on the President, Deputy President and three new members is as follows:

Professor A John Campbell

MB ChB 1969 Otago, DipObst, MRACP, FRACP, MD Otago 1983

Professor Campbell is the nominee of the schools of medicine on the Council, joining in 2001. Since 1995 he has been the Dean of the University of Otago Faculty of Medicine. He is also Professor of Geriatric Medicine (1984 -) and Consultant Physician and Physician in Geriatric Medicine (1980 -).

He has numerous professional affiliations and was a recent member of the National Advisory Committee on Health and Disability. He was a member of the Australian Medical Council accreditation committee 1997-2000. He has convened or been a member of government committees on services for the elderly; he is a member of international journal advisory boards for Age and Ageing, Reviews in Clinical Gerontology and holds other editorial board positions.

Professor Campbell has held several World Health Organisation appointments in the Pacific region and elsewhere. He has undertaken numerous research projects including four recent trials on interventions to prevent fall and fall-related injuries in elderly people and been an invited speaker at a host of international meetings on his subject. His work is extensively published in books and refereed journal articles.

Dr Deborah A Read

MB ChB 1981, Dip Com Health 1987 Otago, MCCM(NZ) 1990, FAFPHM (RACP) 1994

Dr Read is a public health physician with a special interest in environmental health. Her public health medicine career has included positions with the Wellington School of Medicine, the former Public Health Commission and Central Regional Health Authority, MidCentral Health, and the Environmental Risk Management Authority.

She has been a recipient of a World Health Organisation international fellowship in environmental health and held Director of Training positions for the New Zealand Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine training programme. She is a member of the New Zealand Medical Women’s Association.

Dr Read was appointed to the Medical Council of New Zealand by the Minister of Health in 2000 and has been the chair of the Education Committee since 2001 and Deputy President since 2002.

Dr Pippa MacKay

MB ChB, 1978 Otago FRNZCGP 1998

After graduation Dr MacKay spent most of the next six years working in England, achieving vocational training in general practice in both England and New Zealand. She became a partner in general practice in the Ilam Medical Centre in Christchurch in 1987 where she still practises.

In 1989 she was elected to the National Executive of the New Zealand Medical Association, until she became Chair of the Association from 1999-2001.

She was appointed to the Establishment Board, then the Board proper, of the Southern Regional Health Authority from 1991-1996, also holding an appointment as Maternity Mortality Assessor over that time.

Since 1989 she has been employed by the Canterbury District Health Board, and its predecessors, as an Operating Surgeon, at the Lyndhurst Hospital.

Dr Kate O’Connor

BHB, MB ChB 1995 Auckland, FRANZCR

Dr O’Connor graduated from Auckland in 1995 and completed her vocational training in Diagnostic Radiology in 2002. She has worked at Waikato and Tauranga Hospitals as a House Officer and all of the Auckland public hospitals as a Radiology Registrar. In 2003 she has a locum position as a Radiologist at Middlemore Hospital but takes up a permanent post at Tauranga Hospital early in 2004.

She is a Life Member of the NZRDA having participated on the National Executive for six years including two years as National President.

Dr Barnett Bond

MB ChB 1975, Otago FRNZCGP 1986

Dr Bond has worked in rural general practice for 23 years. He was part of a small group practice in the rural Waikato from 1977 to 1994 where he had a large obstetric practice and was a teacher in the Family Medicine Training Programme. In 1983 he did a year of anaesthetic training in the UK and then gave two sessions of general anaesthetics each week at the Pohlen Hospital in Matamata until 1994. He did locums in a remote part of Newfoundland, and in a small mission hospital in Western Thailand. He moved to Waiheke Island and owned a general practice there from 1994 to 2000.

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