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Intermed update - July 2024
Intermed continues to go through a time of transition following the COVID-19 pandemic.
A number of our long-serving Committee members, including our founder, Emeritus Professor Anthony Radford,
have stepped down from the Intermed Committee.
As noted in our last update, due to declining numbers of students, the Intermed-Tabor Graduate
Certificate and Graduate Diploma in International Health and Development ended in 2020 with the
last Intermed Summer School held in January 2019. Between 2015 to 2020, 14 students completed the
Graduate Certificate and 8 the Graduate Diploma, with other students doing some of the subjects.
Plans to collaborate with Tabor for a Graduate Certificate and Diploma in Intercultural Studies,
which would have included some core elements of the Intermed program, were not realised as the
tertiary accreditation requirements could not realistically be met.
In December 2019, Intermed ran a short one-day workshop (Minimed) for medical students planning
electives in less resourced contexts. Our intention was to further develop this short course and
offer it more widely. However, the COVID-19 pandemic meant that no medical students did electives
in less resourced locations overseas in 2020 and 2021. As medical electives have recommenced
Intermed is looking to revive this program but needs to identify someone willing to move this
initiative forward and find the resources to make it happen.
In our last update we noted that Intermed was also looking for opportunities to put some of the
"best" Intermed summer school content online. However, we have since identified some potential
partners who already have online content and are seeking to collaborate to see what additional
content Intermed can add to what is already out there.
Intermed has continued to run, in collaboration with Tabor and the Christian Medical and Dental
Fellowship Australia (CMDFA) in South Australia, an annual Oration in honour of Intermed’s founder,
Emeritus Professor Anthony Radford. You can read about the latest Oration – and all previous Orations – here:
News and Events/The Anthony Radford Oration
At our AGM in May 2024, we agreed that that Intermed would move into a “low maintenance” or “caretaker” mode
until the 2025 AGM when we would then reflect on the preceding 12 months to decide whether it was the “right”
time to wind-up Intermed or to continue our activities.
The Anthony Radford Oration
In honour of Emeritus Professor Anthony Radford AM MBBS MRCP SM (Epid)
MRACP FRCP (Edin) FRACGP FFCM FAFPHM DTM&H.
In 2016 the inaugural Anthony Radford Oration was held
to honour the significant contributions Anthony has made to international health
and development in general, and to Intermed in particular. The origins of Intermed
and Anthony’s foundational role in its establishment are detailed in ABOUT/ History
on this website.
The Orators for the annual Anthony Radford Oration, along
with the title of their Oration, and where provided, some brief details are detailed below.
The 1st Anthony Radford Oration: 7 September 2016
Orator: Associate Professor Jill Benson AM MBBS DCH MPH FACPsychMed
The challenges of staying true to your faith when working as a health professional
Staying true to the depths of what you believe in the face of the challenges of health care in
difficult environments. This might be in the face of the ‘evil’ side of humanity we see when
working with refugees, the ‘neglect’ and ‘stigma’ we meet when working with vulnerable people,
or the bureaucracy that seems to obstruct good health-care rather than facilitate it. This
will be a personal story interwoven with what I know and love about Anthony
Dr. Jill Benson has been a General Practitioner for 35 years. She is the founding Medical
Director of the Kakarrara Wilurrara Health Alliance in the remote Aboriginal communities at
Yalata, Oak Valley and Tjuntjuntjara; and until recently was the Senior Medical officer working
with refugees at the Migrant Health Service. She has worked at a teaching hospital in Dharan
in rural eastern Nepal and has been a WHO consultant setting up a mental health workforce in
Vanuatu. She has researched, published and taught extensively in the fields of cross-cultural
medicine. In 2012 she was awarded a Membership of the Order of Australia for her work in mental
health and with refugees and Aboriginal people.
The 2nd Anthony Radford Oration: 29 September 2017
Orator: Professor Bill Hague BA MBBChir MA MRCP(UK) MRCOG MD FRCOG FRCP
A long and winding road
Bill Hague, made in China, produced in Hong Kong and brought up in the UK, is a Professor at the
University of Adelaide. He has shown international leadership in his medical speciality of obstetric
medicine, and in his active involvement with the Christian Medical and Dental Fellowship of Australia
and the International Christian Medical and Dental Association. In this oration Bill will outline
some of the steps along his journey: a long and winding road.
Bill Hague has been working since 1990 in Obstetric Medicine at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital
(W&CH) in Adelaide, South Australia. After undergraduate training at Trinity College, Cambridge and
St Thomas' Hospital, London, he did postgraduate training in Cambridge, Sheffield and London with
specialist qualifications in both Internal Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and a Cambridge MD
in Familial Aspects of Polycystic Ovaries. His University page also lists his other qualifications!
He was (at the time of this Oration) Senior Consultant Physician in Obstetric Medicine, Women &
Children's Hospital, Adelaide, having previously been a member of the Visiting Staff at Women &
Children's Hospital, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Flinders Medical Centre.
The 3rd Anthony Radford Oration: 7 September 2018
Orator: Nathan Willis
Be(ing) the Change:
Reflections on the ongoing challenges of poverty, powerlessness and lack of access to resources
and education
Nathan is a Lawyer of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and a Registered Migration Agent in private
practice with his wife, Sandra. They live with their 4 children in Northern NSW where Nathan was
(at the time of this Oration) a Councillor on Ballina Shire Council. He has been published in numerous
academic journals and is currently completing a PhD in Law. His first legal client in 2014 was an Iraqi
asylum seeker on Manus Island - who remains on Manus Island today. Prior to his current law career,
Nathan was a Registered Nurse with a speciality in International Health and Development, and provided
emergency relief following the Boxing Day Tsunami, Nias Earthquake, Yogyakarta Earthquake and Cyclone Nargis.
He has post-graduate qualifications from Tabor College in Ministry. His faith in Jesus sustains him
The 4th Anthony Radford Oration: 7 September 2019
Orator: Dr Teem-Wing Yip BA BMBS MPH FACRRM FAFPHM
Why do it by halves?
The improbable adventures of a globally nomadic doctor in Central Australia and other places
Teem-Wing Yip is probably the only person ever to speak both Cantonese and
Pitjantjatjara, and possibly the only person ever to have eaten freshly roasted witchetty grubs with chopsticks.
She is a global medical nomad who has lived in 7 countries so far and has been part of Scottish Country Dance
groups in 4 of them. She's particularly happy if she speaks at least 3 languages in one day.
She is less than half the age of Anthony, her post-nominals are half as long as his, and she’s a little more than
half his height. Despite those significant differences (p<0.05), Teem-Wing is like Anthony in being an intrepid
general practitioner and public health physician with lots of different projects on the go
No Oration was held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic
The 5th Anthony Radford Oration: 16 October 2021
Orator: Emeritus Professor Paul Worley MBBS FRACGP FACRRM DipObsRANZCOG GAICD MBA PhD
Rural Medical Education: from policy to practice or is it the other way round?
Paul is a seventh generation Australian, who, along with four previous generations of his family, has lived on
Kuarna country for most of his life. As a practicing rural doctor, he grew up hearing the stories of his two
maternal grandparents as rural generalists. He studied medicine at the University of Adelaide, graduating in 1984.
He has served in many prominent roles, including being a rural general practitioner in a number of locations in SA,
a past President of the Rural Doctors Association of SA (1992), a previous national Vice President and Academic
Director of ACRRM, a previous Council Member of the AMA (SA), and was on the Adelaide PHN Board 2015-2017. In 2001,
he was appointed Foundation Professor and Director for the Flinders University Rural Clinical School.
Many will know Paul as Dean of the School of Medicine at Flinders University from 2007, where he led the creation
of the first full medical program in the Northern Territory, or as Australia’s first Rural Health Commissioner
(for 3 years from Nov 2017- October 2020).
He is (at the time of this Oration) Executive Director of Clinical Innovation at the Riverland Mallee Coorong Local
Health Network, Editor-in-Chief of the Rural and Remote Health journal and a Director of the RFDS.
The 6th Anthony Radford Oration: 15 October 2022
Orator: Dr Rose Skalicky-Klein
When the going gets tough: is this the right journey?
In a world that values identity, happiness, and security, how do the words of Jesus, “if anyone comes after
me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”, make sense? Through a journey lasting
nearly 12 years, from Australia to remote Tanzania to SE Asia, and back to Australia, Dr Rose Skalicky-Klein
reflects on what it has meant to her and the impact of seeing God’s hand in his global world.
Wife; mother; Emergency Medicine Physician; RFDS Retrieval Consultant, 2021 International Federation of
Emergency Medicine Award recipient; Professor (Hon) University of Medicine 1, Yangon; returned cross-cultural
worker in low resourced countries.
The 7th Anthony Radford Oration: 17 November 2024
Orator: Professor Nathan Grills
“Better off dead?”
Beginning and end of life issues facing those with disabling conditions in a global setting.
Nathan giving the Oration
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Robin and Anthony Radford with Nathan
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Nathan is a Public Health Physician at the Nossal Institute for Global Health University of Melbourne.
He works on community health and disability largely in the context of India.
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