With nominations for top doc now closed, the campaigning – and criticism – has begun in earnest.
Election season at the federal AMA has kicked off with a bang, with one prominent doctor taking to social media to air her misgivings about another’s candidacy.
The doctors who have publicly announced their nomination for the top job are all GPs: women’s health expert Associate Professor Magdalena Simonis, former AMA NSW president Dr Michael Bonning and medicolegal advocate Dr Anchita Karmakar.
Unlike the college elections, AMA members also nominate doctors for the role of vice president.
It’s not mandatory to pick a running mate, but this year’s presidential nominees have all paired up with a vice-presidential nominee.
Professor Simonis’ running mate is orthopaedic surgeon Dr Edward Mah, Dr Bonning’s is immediate past AMA Tasmania president and GP Dr Michael Lumsden-Steel and Dr Karmakar’s is paediatric urologist Professor Paddy Dewan.
Emergency physician Dr Sarah Whitelaw and breast and endocrine surgeon Professor Owen Ung have also thrown their hats in the ring for the position of vice president, but are not running with a specific presidential candidate.
The Medical Republic aims to profile each presidential candidate in the lead-up to next month’s election.
Dr Karmakar, who was the first to announce her candidacy, is perhaps best known for having taken legal action over the question of procedural fairness in the Professional Services Review process.
The case was ultimately dismissed by the federal court.
She has been through the PSR process herself and was found to have engaged in inappropriate practice as a GP registrar; in 2019, Dr Karmakar was ordered to repay more than $350,000 in Medicare benefits.
On Tuesday, Business for Doctors founder and high-profile GP Dr April Armstrong took to LinkedIn to air her personal concerns about Dr Karmakar’s candidacy, specifically citing the PSR finding and Dr Karmakar’s later legal action.
“Accepting accountability, particularly after a court has weighed in and you have lost, is not a nice-to-have,” Dr Armstrong wrote.
“It is a leadership trait in its own right. It shapes how a President models standards for every member, and how credibly the AMA can hold anyone else to those same standards. She has not accepted accountability.”
Dr Armstrong told TMR that she would “expect the president of the AMA to be able to sit at a negotiating table with the minister and understand misaligned values”.
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Dr Karmakar responded with her own post.
“As a GP registrar, in my earliest years of practice, I was reviewed under the PSR scheme,” she wrote.
“I repaid what was ordered and AHPRA exonerated me of any professional conduct or caution for my license as this was an administrative issue.
“I served the Medicare billing item disqualification period (most of those items numbers don’t exist anymore). I complied with every direction handed down. That is what accepting a legal outcome looks like.
“And I have never hidden any of it. I have declared this history, in full, in every executive appointment I have held since, public sector and private. Every board, every panel, every employer made their decision with the complete record in front of them.”
Dr Karmakar said she was not asking members to elect her as someone “untouched by the system”, but as someone who has “been through it … and knows exactly which mechanisms need to change”.
The next federal AMA president and vice president will be decided on at the organisation’s conference in Melbourne next month.
The successful candidates will be elected for a two-year term, replacing current president Dr Danielle McMullen and vice president Associate Professor Julian Rait.
Membership of a state- or territory-based AMA automatically confers membership and voting rights for the federal AMA.
The only exception is doctors who are part of the AMA Queensland, which is no longer part of the federation.
The federal organisation has publicly stated that there will be membership options for doctors in Queensland who wish to join or rejoin the federal body.
