GPs Dr Anchita Karmakar and Dr Michael Bonning have been the first to announce their candidacy for president of the federal AMA.
GP advocates from very different professional backgrounds will be among those vying for president of the federal AMA this year, with former AMA NSW president Dr Michael Bonning and high-profile medicolegal advocate Dr Anchita Karmakar throwing their hats in the ring.
It’s election year for the medical peaks – ACRRM, the AMA and the RACGP all have elections this year – but the federal AMA is first cab off the rank.
Nominations for president and vice president of the association opened on 19 June, with a webinar to introduce all the candidates scheduled for later this month. The vote itself will be held at the AMA26 national conference in Melbourne on 29 August.
Dr Karmakar, a law graduate and ACRRM fellow, may be familiar to some already due to her protracted and public legal fight against the Professional Services Review (PSR).
Her central claim was that she was denied procedural fairness throughout the PSR process and was unable to have proper legal representation.
While the case made it to the federal court, it was ultimately dismissed.
Before it was, though, the presiding judge did level some serious blows against the PSR, comparing its processes to that of the notorious English “star chamber” court.
In the years since, Dr Karmakar has remained active in medicolegal circles.
Her nomination for AMA president comes from prominent GP Dr Mukesh Haikerwal and obstetrician Associate Professor Gino Pecoraro.
Both have been long-time supporters of Dr Karmakar.
“I’ve spent a whole career sitting in two chairs at once, as a doctor and as a lawyer, duly qualified in both,” Dr Karmakar told The Medical Republic.
“And let’s not be oblivious of the elephant in the rooms – I’ve been through regulatory processes.
“[With] everything that’s happened, I’ve always wondered … why me, and why has this happened, and why do I keep subjecting myself to all this work?
“But that dual view has really shown me exactly where the profession is exposed and the regulation that hasn’t really kept pace with how medicine is actually practised, and also the workforce and indemnity settings that don’t really reflect the realities of every specialty.
“The federation sometimes talks past its own members and it doesn’t address exactly what needs to be addressed. I really wanted to get into that zone and see if I can maybe use all of this expertise that I’ve developed and try and be that bridge to bring back that conversation to our core values of being excellent clinicians and providing excellent care.”
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Outside of clinical work, Dr Karmakar is also the managing director of MediEdu – a company that provides extended scope of practice training to pharmacists.
Despite the controversy surrounding expanded scope of practice, Dr Karmakar said she tried to approach the issue as “Switzerland”.
“We need to make sure that whoever is actually going through the system and is going to be delivering care is appropriately trained, appropriately mentored and appropriately supported, if they are going to go out into the wide world to actually do this,” she said.
“That’s where I stand personally in terms of support – whether it’s pharmacists or nurse practitioners or paramedics.
“If someone is actually going to go out there and start doing clinical reasoning and prescribing as primary health clinicians, [then as] general practitioners we are the medical governance leaders. If it is lawful and if that is what’s legally allowed to be done, then I would like to think that I can support and mentor these people as much as much as I can.
“The training program that I provide to whoever wants to engage us is about the reality. I scare the living socks out of these people when they go through my workshops.”
Dr Bonning, on the other hand, comes from a more traditional advocacy background.
He served as AMA NSW president in 2022 and 2023, and is a current federal AMA councillor.
“I am very focused on the AMA’s need to protect professional independence, let doctors work in the best interests of their patients and to oppose those who want a pliant medical profession,” he told TMR.
Nominations for AMA federal president remain open until 17 July.
Nominations for both RACGP and ACRRM presidents have also opened.
