At Parliament House
In his role as Queensland Chairman of the Australian Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Dr Kenneth Cutbush attended a meeting at Parliament House in June 2017 with members of the Council of Procedural Specialists.
The group met the Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt, and then the Shadow Federal Health Minister, Catherine King.
What the Australian Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons is
The Australian Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons, usually shortened to ASOS, is the body that represents orthopaedic surgeons on the economic and regulatory side of practice. It is a separate organisation from the Australian Orthopaedic Association, which is concerned with training, professional standards and research. The division is a common one in medicine: one organisation looks after the craft, another looks after the conditions under which the craft is practised. ASOS has state branches, each with a chairman, and those state positions form part of its national structure.
What the Council of Procedural Specialists is
The Council of Procedural Specialists brings together the organisations that represent procedural specialists, which is to say the doctors whose work involves operations and procedures: surgeons of all kinds, anaesthetists, obstetricians, ophthalmologists and others. Taken individually these groups are small. Taken together they account for a substantial part of what the health system actually does, which is why they coordinate when dealing with government.
Why surgeons take part in health policy
Much of what determines whether a patient can get an operation is settled a long way from the operating theatre. The schedule of Medicare rebates, the way private health insurance products are regulated, the rules on informed financial consent, workforce planning and the funding of public hospital operating lists all shape what is available and to whom.
Surgeons who deal with the consequences of those settings in clinic are in a position to describe them, and bodies such as ASOS exist to put that case in an organised way rather than leaving it to individuals. Meeting both the Minister and the Shadow Minister is the usual pattern, since health policy outlasts any one government and the groundwork has to be laid on both sides of the chamber.
Related information
See also our post on the meeting with Queensland Health, and our consultation FAQs page.