Practice Managers Conference inspires “unsung heroes” of rural practice

The Rural Practice Managers Conference was hosted by Rural Doctors Network (RDN) at the Manly Pacific on 27 and 28 November and drew around 80 enthusiastic delegates to participate in rural-focused education sessions and opportunities to network with peers. The Conference took place as part of Rural Health Month, a series of multidisciplinary training and networking events hosted by Rural Health Pro, a social enterprise of RDN.

“This is always my favourite event of the year because it’s an opportunity to provide and give back through education to the practice managers who are often the unsung heroes in practice,” said RDN Practice and Workforce Manager Lucinda Coble. 

“The practice manager is the nucleus of the practice, so if there’s any problems everything comes to the practice manager. So RDN has recognised that and provided this opportunity for the last five years as part of Rural Health Month, so that practice managers have an opportunity to come together.    

“This week in beautiful Manly, we had eleven speakers and a very diverse range of topics – from all the developments occurring in Gen AI, to the current data protection reforms before Parliament, the new Voluntary Assisted Dying framework in NSW, and a session on fostering psychological wellness in practices as well as discussion of other support services that are available for practice.  

“And we had a wonderful presentation from Grace Brennan who, in very hard times, set up the Buy from the Bush slogan for social media which has had an amazing effect on e-commerce in the bush for people who really needed additional incomes.” 

The Conference not only affords practice managers an opportunity for structured educational sessions, but also for extensive networking with fellow rural practice managers, doctors and other industry professionals, with groups like the ACRRM and RACGP represented at the expo stalls at the venue. 

Courtney Hodges, a practice owner from Forbes, found this aspect invaluable. “It’s a great opportunity to come and meet people” she said. “There’s so much information sharing and exchanging that happens outside the conferences… Every time we took a break we’d have these really wonderful conversations because everyone has the same sort of challenges and so it’s just really nice to know you are not alone.” 

“A highlight for me personally was Grace Brennan from Buy From the Bush and I also really loved the session on AI. Grace had a really important message about rural communities – about changing the conversation around what are our strengths and what are our challenges… it’s about how we tell our story about what life is like in the bush and how to really promote that to our city counterparts. 

“And the session on AI [by Miroslav Doncevic of Digital Medical Systems], that really hit home just how quickly that space is changing and about how important it is - and how much we don’t know, but we need to know about AI, because it’s not a case of if, but really when we start to embrace that.” 

This year, the Practice Managers Conference took place in the final week of Rural Health Pro’s Rural Health Month events for November, and was sponsored by Avant Practice Management, Australian Primary Nurses Association, the NSW Government’s Isolated Patients Travel and Accommodation Assistance Scheme, MIGA, and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. 

More coverage of the Practice Managers Conference will be included in the upcoming edition of Practice Made Perfect, RDN’s quarterly news email for practice managers in remote, rural and regional New South Wales. 

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• Practice Managers Conference inspires “unsung heroes” of rural practice