2014 Australian Medical Association National Conference

The 2014 Australian Medical Association (AMA) National Conference was held on 23–25 May at the National Convention Centre in Canberra. This year's theme was “Global practice: Australian perspective”. In addition to the members of the AMA Federal Council and state and special interest group representatives, the meeting was attended by six guests from medical associations overseas and past AMA Presidents dating back as far as 1988.

Following a keynote address by the Hon John Berry, United States Ambassador to Australia, the Conference departed slightly from the theme to explore the highly controversial federal health Budget. The Hon Peter Dutton MP defended his rationale for the proposed changes, including the $7 general practitioner copayment, and was followed with a rebuttal by Shadow Health Minister, the Hon Catherine King MP. AMA delegates had an opportunity to pose questions to both ministers on these important proposals.

Subsequent sessions shifted back to global health policy, in which a range of challenges were discussed. Conference proceedings were recorded and are available to view at https://ama.com.au/nationalconference.

The election of office bearers took place on the final day of the conference, and Associate Professor Brian Owler was welcomed to the post of AMA President. We congratulate him and wish him well as he takes on this challenging role. We also thank the outgoing Dr Steve Hambleton for his considerable achievements in this position.

I was honoured to present the 2013 MJA, MDA National Prize for Excellence in Medical Research. Professor Derek Chew collected the prize on behalf of all the authors of the winning manuscript, Acute coronary syndrome care across Australia and New Zealand: the SNAPSHOT ACS study.1 We were particularly impressed not only by the quality of this research and its important findings, but by the extent of the collaboration between broad-ranging networks that the authors achieved. We extend our gratitude to MDA National for their generous support of the $10 000 prize. Send us your best research to be considered for next year's competition!

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Presentation of the 2013 MJA, MDA National Prize for Excellence in Medical Research. From left: Dr Steve Hambleton, Dr Christine Gee, Professor Derek Chew and Associate Professor Rosanna Capolingua.