45th ICMM World Congress Reception for International Delegates

Secretary General, ICMM, Lieutenant General Pierre Neirinckx MD; Surgeon General, Australian Defence Force and Commander Joint Health, ICMM Chair, Rear Admiral Sonya Bennett AM RAN; Senior Officers and members of the Australian Defence Force; delegates; distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen.

I begin by acknowledging the Original Custodians of the lands around Brisbane, the Turrbal and Jagera people, and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging and to any First Nations people here with us this evening.

As Governor of Queensland and the representative of our Head of State, His Majesty, King Charles the Third, I am delighted to welcome you, along with my husband Graeme, to Government House and to Australia’s ‘Sunshine State’,

As some of you already know, I was appointed to the position of Governor almost three years ago after a long career in medicine, and Graeme, too, has had a long and distinguished career both in medicine and in the Army Reserve Medical Corp, so we have both taken a strong personal interest in the proceedings of the Congress this week.

Tonight, given that you all know the history of the ICMM, I hope you will indulge me in describing a conference held in Brisbane one year before the ICMM was formed.

The Australasian Medical Congress held a major conference here more than a century ago, in 1920, specifically to reflect on what had been learnt through the four years of the First World War, as did many other countries.

In his opening address, the then President, Colonel Reginald Millard, reflected that, while medical personnel in the Australian Army and Navy had the required academic qualifications, few had had any experience of active service conditions before enlisting for World War I.

Having seen the horrors of the War at Gallipoli and in Egypt and France, Colonel Millard called on the Congress to consider how this situation might be improved and how doctors and nurses might apply their war experience to civilian life and to service in future wars. His address to the Congress that day was prescient and remains as relevant now as it was in 1920.

He spoke of how war had enabled artificial limbs to be studied as never before; how surgery of chest and abdominal injuries had been greatly advanced; how the scope of reconstructive and plastic surgery had been widely expanded; and how medical personnel had benefitted from the experience of treating war neuroses and conditions such as trench fever and gas poisoning.

He also drew attention to the immense importance of antiseptic treatment and of systematic inoculation of armies against diseases such as typhoid, concluding that “never before [had] such a mass of clinical material been so intensively studied”.

Like Colonel Millard and the other men and women at that Brisbane conference in 1920, the ICMM is committed to sharing knowledge and fostering collaboration in order to ensure that military medicine continues to provide crucial battlefield support and enhanced medical care and rehabilitation. Most importantly, you have involved more than 100 countries in your work.

So, on behalf of all Queenslanders, I congratulate and thank you all for everything that you do to support military personnel and promote humanitarian medical efforts worldwide. It is through your commitment and dedication that military medicine will continue to evolve to meet the threats and emergencies of the future.

Thank you.