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AMWA 2013 Annual Conference – have you registered?

AMWA’s annual conference is fast approaching. Registrations are open online now – visit our website to take advantage of our early bird membership offer before August 1.

If you’d like to know more about what’s on offer, here’s a teaser of some of the exciting sessions we have planned.

The gut of the matter. Are we what we eat? Food Allergy

Professor Robyn O’Hehir is Professor and Director of the Department of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, Alfred Hospital and Central Clinical School, Monash University. Professor O’Hehir conducts an active program combining clinical care, clinical and experimental research and education. She is an Editor of the international journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy and the Allergy bible, Middleton’s Allergy: Principles and Practice. Professor O’Hehir has a strong commitment to immunoregulation research and translational medicine. Her Allergy Research Team identified the key sequences of the two major peanut proteins that interact with T cells and build immunological tolerance, but do not bind allergy antibody (IgE) and cause anaphylaxis. These “dominant fragments or peptides” are the best candidates for a safe peanut allergy vaccine. Professor O’Hehir has more than 214 publications with over 5,600 career citations and is a Life Governor of Asthma Victoria.

On issues close to home. 10 year report card-Stigma watch

Robyn Thompson has worked in and with the medical for more than 25 years. Working in TV and radio news she began as a journalist with the ABC before working for the Red Cross as a communications specialist in Australia and at the international headquarters in Geneva. She worked for the Victorian Health Department and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation before joining the mental health charity, SANE Australia, as media relations manager in 2010.

Medical writers new models of work

We have a major focus this year on the digital revolution – whether you’re part of the media, pitching to it or learning from it, you’ll know it’s changing irrevocably. New models of work for writers will be discussed with literary agent and media lecturer A/Prof John Cokley,  freelance journalism expert and Branch Secretary, MEAA, Louise Connor with tips on survival in a changing marketplace for writers, and digital strategist Bronwen Clune talking about the new media and the public interest.

Clinicians fact and fiction – medical writing today: issues, challenges and opportunities

On fiction

Dr Leah Kaminsky, a physician and writer, is Poetry & Fiction Editor at the Medical Journal of Australia and Online Editor at Hunger Mountain. The author of several books, she conceived and edited Writer, M.D., an anthology of contemporary doctor-writers (Vintage Knopf US 2012, first issued by Scribe as The Pen and the Stethoscope). Her award-winning poetry collection, Stitching Things Together was published in 2010 (Highly commended IP Picks Prize, commended Anne Elder award). As the recipient of many grants and fellowships, her work is published or forthcoming in Huffington Post, Creative Nonfiction, Monocle, Antipodes, Griffith Review, r,kv.r.y, Hippocrates Poetry Prize anthology, Poems in the Waiting Room, Up The Staircase, The Ampersand Review, [PANK], Voices, Australian Poetry, Quadrant, The Examined Life, Mattoid, Cordite Poetry Review, Transnational Literature and The Age, amongst others. She was co-editor with Lee Gutkind of Issue #46 of Creative Nonfiction magazine. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and a BA in Literature from Deakin University.  (www.leahkaminsky.com).

Sound interesting? Register online now!