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Vice president’s perspective Our most recent Australian elections have reinforced the importance of leading a sustainable future for surgery in both our countries. Through the Health Policy and Advocacy Committee, sustainability remains high on the College’s agenda. We have several cross-college alliances on climate change and environmental sustainability. We also look forward to adopting the Green College guidelines for the ongoing business of the College – both at RACS offices and how we conduct our courses. Another lens on our sustainability is the sustainable workplace. Our attention will be focussed on the Building Respect,
Improving Patient Safety initiative, where an operational group has now formed to advance the agenda outlined in the Expert Advisory Group Review of the initiative. The awareness to action momentum will address the domains of discrimination (in all its forms), feedback culture and leadership in the action plan. The leadership framework of the action plan will be particularly interesting. Leadership as an everyday activity may assist in building resilience and preventing burnout in clinicians. It may explore how experiential learning can be as nourishing and formative as it is summative.
Continuing with the sustainability theme, we have been actively advocating with governments of both countries and all states and territories in the sustainability of private practice. COVID-19 restrictions have affected both public and private health spheres in different ways. We are expecting a large period of catch up after the pandemic surges become less frequent. The community will need healthy and buoyant health systems, both public and private to ensure sufficient flexibility. I had the pleasure of attending, on the president’s behalf, the Australian and
