The biggest ever Australasian Military Medicine Association (AMMA) Conference, held in Adelaide, drew more than 900 military health professionals to address the theme of ‘Military Healthcare in a Dynamic Environment’.

Surgeon General of the ADF and patron of AMMA, Rear Admiral Sonya Bennett, welcomed South Australia’s Minister for Health and Wellbeing Chris Picton and delegations from Cambodia, Brunei, Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia and Vietnam. 

“AMMA represents a gathering of minds, under the umbrella of a shared interest to enable our respective militaries in defending our nations and their national interests,” Rear Admiral Bennett said.  

“The diversity of delegates is particularly noteworthy – both within the uniformed workforce with all health categories, ranks and experience represented, including students – to academic and industry partners, and health professionals from government and NGOs [non-profit organisations].”

Rear Admiral Bennett spoke about the continuing challenges contributing to the dynamic environment that military health professionals worked in.

“Australia is facing our most challenging and complex strategic circumstances since World War 2, so partnership, integration, evolution and transformation must be the way we handle it,” she said.

“Geopolitical instability does not occur in isolation. Other global challenges such as increasing burden of disease and health inequities, technology acceleration, climate change and economic vulnerability are intricately linked and all shape our dynamic environment individually and collectively, contributing to the risk of conflict.

“We need to consider the types and scale of injuries and illness likely to be experienced such as trauma, but also non-battle illness and mental health concerns.  

“We also need to look at how we integrate with our civilian colleagues – the National Health System and industry.  Logistics poses a particular challenge – how to get health supplies to the right place at the right time poses significant challenges, especially for unique classes of supply like blood.”

The conference included 76 oral presentations and 34 poster presentations addressing subjects such as veterans’ health and wellbeing, virtual reality use for pain and recovery, and using drones and AI for mass casualty triage.