RANZCO 2024: accolades and awards

December 8, 2024 Lesley Springall

The 55^th RANZCO Scientific Congress attracted more than 2,200 attendees (1,841 in person, including 1,390 delegates, and 164 online) from a record 32 countries. The highlight for a handful and their families, however, was the annual graduation ceremony at the impressive Adelaide Oval.

 

Amid gowns galore, 39 new fellows were welcomed to the college’s ranks, including 33 through the vocational training programme, five via the Specialist International Medical Graduate Pathway and one international fellow – Dr David Lubeck, assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, Chicago – through the College’s Ophthalmologist of Eminence pathway. Of the new vocational trainees, three were from New Zealand: Drs Nishanthan Ramachandran, Joanne Teong and Zea Munro.

 

As well as welcoming new graduates, the ceremony provided the perfect platform for the RANZCO presidential baton to be handed from outgoing president Dr Grant Raymond to new president Professor Peter McCluskey. Other awards and accolades presented at the 2024 congress included:

 

 

Outgoing RANZCO president Dr Grant Raymond hands over the presidential chain of office to new RANZCO president Prof Peter McCluskey

 

 

2024 College Award winners 

 

• College Medal, recognising an individual’s outstanding service and contribution to the college – Dr Diana Semmonds AM and Prof Glen Gole AM
• Distinguished Service Award, for outstanding contributions to the college, ophthalmology or the community – Dr Arthur Karagiannis, Dr Clayton Barnes, Prof Justine Smith AM, A/Prof Penelope Allen and Prof Robyn Guymer AM
• Federal Meritorious Service Award, national level recognition for long, outstanding service in ophthalmology publicly, academically, voluntarily or philanthropically, including services to the college or community – Prof Adrian Fung and Dr Nisha Sachdev
• Honorary fellowship – A/Prof Svetlana Cherepanoff.

 

Trainers of Excellence

 

• Dr Alexandra Crawford – New Zealand
• Dr Anne Malatt – NSW
• Dr Benjamin LaHood – South Australia
• Dr Geoffrey Chan – Western Australia
• Dr John Downie – NSW
• Prof Shuan Dai – Queensland
• Dr Szczepan Nowakowski – Victoria
• Dr Colin Thompson – NSW, Regionally Enhanced Training Network

 

 

Dr Andrew Thompson accompanying RANZCO’s Tessa Hayward at the President’s Reception after the 2024 graduation ceremony

 

 

Other awards

 

• Best surgical film: Optic nerve sheath schwannoma excision via an endoscopic endonasal approach – Dr Clare Quigley
• Best non-surgical film: OOXii Vision Kit: a solution for refractive error in remote and low resource communities – Dr Sarah Crowe
• Commendation – Dr Qiang Li for co-founding JFF Create, an ophthalmic volunteering initiative to empower junior doctors to fight global blindness
• Best paper (fellow), the Gerard Crock Award: The impact of baseline intraocular pressure on treatment response in the Light trial: SLT versus medication – Dr Eamonn Fahy
• Best paper (trainee), the John Parr Award: Stage of keratoconus at the time of corneal cross-linking impacts outcomes – Dr Jessica Huang
• Best posters: Incidence and risk of depressive disorder in patients with retinitis pigmentosa – Prof Hae Rang Kim; and Identifying keratoconus using an automated machine learning model – Dr Pádraig O'Connell
• Sustainability Award: Evaluating the impact of education and clear guidance on waste sorting and point-of-care recycling for intravitreal injections – Lydia Lam

 

 

Dr Sarah Crowe with her remote-testing refraction device and Prof Angus Turner