Meetings and Workshops

AMISIG Ultrasound Workshop - Friday 15th May

For further information click here.

Time: 8.30 am – 2.30 pm (includes morning tea and lunch)

Included in the registration fee for NZRA + ARA Associate Members i.e. Rheumatology trainee or within 2 years of being awarded FRACP.

Other NZRA + ARA members are not eligible to attend.

Joint Effort – A Collobarative Rheumatology Workshop

Chair: Linda Bradbury NP and Dr Justin Holland

0830-0845 Welcome, and  Acknowledgement of Country 

0845-0915 Immunology refresher – Prof Tony Kenna (Immunologist)

0915-0945 Rheumatology: Pathology – Dr Kate Morgan (GP)

0945-1015 Rheumatology: Imaging – Dr Nivene Saad (Radiologist)

1015-1030  Morning Tea

1030-1115 Differentiating Inflammatory Disease Presentations – Dr Hash Abdeen (Rheumatologist)

1115-12.15 Exploring Rheumatological Disease Through Case based Learning

Panel Discussion – Priya Sinh (Pharmacist), Kate Morgan (GP), Paula Newey (CNC), Lainie Cameron (EP), Ethan Blanchard (Podiatrist), Barry Robinson (First Nations Nurse Navigator)

1215-1300 Lunch

1300-1345 Harnessing Patient Reported Outcomes to Improve Rheumatology Care – Prof Mwidimi Ndosi (Professor of Rheumatology Nursing)

1345-1415 Lived Experience – Dr Stephanie Frade (EP) 

1415-1425  Workshop Close

FLYER DOWNLOAD

WHEN: Saturday 16th May | 0830-1430

WHERE: GCEC

COST: No cost, add to your online registration form.

Open to all medical and healthcare professional members only.

0830-0845 Welcome

Bridging Continents
Dr Tim Beukelman

Functional Somatic Syndrome
Dr Penelope Larcombe

1000-1030  Morning Tea 

Best practices for helping patients and families navigate the pediatric-to-adult transition
A/Prof Rebecca Sadun

Inflammatory Uveitis Update
Dr Megan Cann and Dr Philippa Sharwood

Friday, 15th May 2025 | GCCEC

SPDP 1 12:00pm-3:00pm AEST - REGISTER HERE

SPDP 2 3:30pm-6:30pm AEST -  REGISTER HERE

Further information please click here.

Innovations for Improvement
Date: Monday 18th May 2026
Time: 1000-1100
Venue: First Floor, Room 5

Do you have an idea that’s been implemented/changed your clinical practice? 

We invite all health professionals – doctors, nurses, allied health, pharmacists, researchers and beyond – to share innovative clinical ideas with a focus on real-world implementation.  From small changes that made a big difference, new pathways, tools, or new models of care that work, this session is about practical innovation from the frontline.

Total word limit: 250 words across three questions.  No formal data required. Early-stage and small-scale ideas welcome . 

Closing date for applications is Sunday 8th March.

Successful applicants will be asked to present their innovation on Monday 18th May at 10.15:  5 mins presentation  with 5 mins questions. Successful applicants will be notified by email.  

1. What problem were you trying to solve? (Briefly describe the clinical or service issue your idea addresses)

 2. What did you change or implement? (Outline your idea and how it works in the real-world)

3. What happened or what did you learn? (Share early impact, outcomes, lessons learned or next steps).

A session for all to share innovative clinical ideas with a focus on real-world implementation.  From small changes that made a big difference, new pathways, tools, or new models of care that work, this session is about practical innovation from the frontline.

10:05 Errol Lim

10:11 Sarah Wilson

10:17 Janet Millner

10:23  Sarah Hall

10:29  EeLynn Ting

10:35 Carol McCrum

Chronic Pain Study Group (CPSG) Satellite Dinner Meeting

NEURORHEUMATOLOGY WITH A SPIN: THERAPEUTIC INNOVATION WITH THE CALORIC TEST IN NOCIPLASTIC PAIN

Sunday 17th May | 6 pm - 8 pm

DATE & TIME: Sunday 17 May 2026  |  6:00pm – 8:00pm AEST

VENUE: The Club House at The Beach Hotel, Broadbeach — 8 min walk from the conference venue

DINNER REGISTRATION COST: $130 per person — includes 2-course dinner + 2-hour beverage package

REGISTRATION & ENQUIRIES: For ARA ASM delegates, please register & pay for the CPSG Satellite Dinner Meeting as part of the registering for ARA ASM. Please note limited seats are available & registrations will close on 31 March 2026 or earlier once capacity has been reached.

Presentation Summary

Our sense of balance — though under-recognised across science & medicine — has deep evolutionary, ontogenetic & integrative foundations in brain-behaviour responses that have come to light particularly since the late 20th Century. The caloric test — via the vestibulo-ocular reflex — is a simple, low-cost, low-risk, non-invasive and widely used mainstream neurodiagnostic technique for balance problems & brain death, with a long-standing record of safety since its development over a century ago. The technique is routinely performed for example in primary care clinics by GPs & nurses (for cerumen removal), audiologists, neurologists & ENT physicians.

Over recent decades its renewed transformative potential — through vestibulocortical stimulation (VCS) — is highlighted by remarkable therapeutic benefits shown in adults with often disabling refractory conditions such as phantom limb & central post-stroke pain, migraine, CRPS/allodynia and nociplastic disease (e.g., refractory fibromyalgia & ME/CFS); other neurological disorders (e.g., Parkinson’s disease, minimally conscious state); and severe mental illness (e.g., depression, bipolar & schizophrenia spectrum disorders). This talk will present a high-level overview of the technique’s wide-ranging multimodal effects across mood, pain, cognition, attention, perception, beliefs/insight & mobility — with a practical lens towards accessible, scalable & innovative clinical care for people suffering from chronic primary pain conditions & other complex (comorbid) conditions.

The body of work on VCS therapy trials in nociplastic pain is a close collaboration — now going on six years — between the presenter and A/Prof. Michael Kaplan MD in the Division of Rheumatology (NCT05004194; NCT06559839), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, USA). They are currently conducting the world’s first sham-controlled randomised trial of VCS in fibromyalgia (NCT07423377; as senior supervising scientist & principal investigator, respectively).

This body of work also has a broader community and workforce health & wellbeing focus through enhancing occupational rehabilitation and functional outcomes in: (i) safety-critical industries (e.g., Military, Veterans’ & Emergency Services); (ii) professional & participation sports (e.g., concussion); (iii) underserviced & paediatric populations across rural/regional areas & developing countries, including children & adults with neurodevelopmental disabilities; and (iv) restoring capacity (e.g., dementia, palliative care).

PRESENTER: Dr Trung Thành Ngô — The University of Queensland | Tess Cramond Pain & Research Centre

Trung has over 15 years of STEMM capabilities in driving fundamental discovery and clinical translation projects, along with delivering specialist research evaluation services for several large-scale strategic & funding priorities (e.g., principal investigators; medical science associations; multi-institutional national/international partnerships).

With an interdisciplinary synthesis & quality outcomes focus, he is advancing:

(I)Precision Pain Medicine R&D program to delineate genetically supported risk & protective factors, transdiagnostic subtypes/biotypes and novel therapeutic targets for chronic pain & its many comorbidities (e.g., dementia; Parkinson’s disease; psychiatric, sleep & cardiometabolic disorders);

(II) Vestibulocortical stimulation (VCS) therapy trials in these complex conditions and its preventative health utility — i.e., improving insight & reversing maladaptive neuroplasticity/inflammation following injury/trauma (e.g., acquired brain injuries, concussion, PTSD) — with both local & U.S. clinicians across multiple medical disciplines and in other prominent pain presentations (e.g., endometriosis; functional neurological disorders; multiple sclerosis).

Trung also actively supports the Australian entrepreneurship ecosystem through Health Tech Innovation QLD — and AIMOS:  the Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research & Open Science — in its continuing commitment to improving research quality, integrity & culture for the meaningful benefit of our broader community. His PhD in Neuroscience was undertaken with Jack Pettigrew MBBS FRS, followed by an NHMRC Clinical Research Fellowship examining a bistable (quantum) switching biomarker of neurocognitive (dys)regulation and VCS in persistent pain, bipolar & depressive disorders.

For any enquiries and non-delegate dinner registrations, please contact Trung directly on 042 111 7258 (or Trung.Ngo@uq.edu.au)