IPCRG welcomes Amanda Barnard as new President & committee updates

“I was honoured to take over the Presidency of IPCRG from Professor Ee Ming Khoo at the conclusion of our very successful conference in Athens. Ee Ming has, with the seemingly indefatigable team, led the IPCRG through a period of post-COVID expansion in both its education and research activities. She has led with a quiet and unassuming authority, and  has brought her skills and knowledge as a researcher, educator, and manager to the role.

A little bit about myself: I am an Australian academic GP with a very long-term interest in respiratory disease in primary care. This interest was sparked as a young registrar, when I was perplexed by the fact that patients with hypertension would come in and ask me to check their blood pressure, yet I only saw patients with asthma when they had an acute attack. I was one of the founding members of the ‘Australian GPs in Asthma Group’ which became a committee of the National Asthma Council of Australia, and from 2010 to 2022 I chaired the Guidelines committee for the Australian Asthma Handbook, unique in that it is developed by primary care for primary care. I was introduced to IPCRG at its inaugural world conference in Amsterdam in 2002, and have been privileged to attend most of their conferences since then. I have found the IPCRG community welcoming, innovative, committed and enthusiastic.

I have recently retired from my university position where I established and led a Rural Clinical School: rural health is one of my passions. I have a long-term association with WONCA (World Organisation of Family Doctors) where I chaired the working party on Women and Family Medicine from 2009-2012, which led organisational change in gender and health equity.

I am looking forward to the challenge of being IPCRG President and I am reminded of the words of Past President Professor Ioanna Tsiligianni, who, when discussing why we get involved with these additional activities on top of our other work, said to me “IPCRG gets things done”. Reflecting on the years since that conversation, IPCRG certainly does get things done, and its rich and diverse activities continue to increase in both range and geographical spread. I hope that under my presidency we can continue that work and further expand international awareness of our extensive resources, education programmes and research, and further mobilise our membership to reach even more primary care practitioners so we can improve prevention, diagnosis and care of respiratory disease in global community and primary care settings.”