Join UNSW Medicine & Health in partnership with NSW Health, the Future Workforce Unit and the International Centre for Future Health Systems for the Future Health Skills Summit.
This summit shifts the focus from what the research is to how we build the future workforce skills and job re-design that will successfully support this translation at scale. We are looking beyond the lab and into the clinic, the community and the policy rooms to create a Future Health Skills roadmap.
Professor Michael Kidd AO FAHMS is the Chief Medical Officer for the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, appointed June 1 2025. Professor Kidd is an Australian academic, primary care researcher, educator and clinician. He has a joint appointment as the inaugural Director of the International Centre for Future Health Systems at UNSW Sydney, and as Professor of Global Primary Care and Future Health Systems with the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford.
He is a member of the board of The George Institute for Global Health, Telstra Health, and Therapeutic Guidelines Limited, and chair of the Therapeutic Guidelines Foundation. He is a member of the Australian Government Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC). From 2020 to 2023, he served as Principal Medical Advisor and Deputy Chief Medical Officer with the Australian Government Department of Health, and as the foundation Professor of Primary Care Reform at the Australian National University. He is a Professorial Fellow with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Honorary Professor with the Department of General Practice at the University of Melbourne, Honorary Professor of Global Primary Care with the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University, and Adjunct Professor with the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto.
He was Professor and Chair of the Department of General Practice at the University of Sydney from 1996 to 2008, and the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University from 2009 to 2016, with responsibility for the university’s School of Medicine, School of Nursing and Midwifery, and School of Health Sciences, and the university’s health and medical research and education activities across South Australia and the Northern Territory. He was Chair of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto in Canada, Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Family Medicine and Primary Care, and Senior Innovation Fellow with the Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto from 2017 to February 2020. He has worked for over 35 years as a family doctor/general practitioner with special interests in the care of people with HIV, mental health and Indigenous health. He served two terms as the elected President of the RACGP from 2002 to 2006. He served as President of the World Organization of Family Doctors from 2013 to 2016. He is the Patron of the Australian General Practice Students Network and General Practice Registrars Australia.
Professor Jackie Curtis was appointed inaugural Executive Director of Mindgardens in April 2020. Jackie is a psychiatrist and was previously the Clinical Director of Youth Mental Health at the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District. Her research and clinical work over several decades has focused on early psychosis and youth mental health, including improving the cardiometabolic health of people living with serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, with the aim of reducing health inequalities and increasing life expectancy. Jackie developed and implemented the internationally recognised Keeping the Body in Mind program, demonstrating that antipsychotic-induced weight gain can be prevented with lifestyle intervention. She is a Conjoint Professor in the School of Psychiatry at UNSW Sydney. In 2023 she was the recipient of the prestigious Margaret Tobin Award from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. In 2024, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2024 King’s Birthday Honours.
Professor Patricia Davidson previously served as Vice Chancellor and President of the University of Wollongong and is currently the interim Co-Director of the International Centre for Future Health Systems and a Vice Chancellor’s Fellow and at UNSW Sydney. The International Centre for Future Health Systems is a research, policy and advocacy centre that seeks to improve health systems to deliver more equitable, sustainable, and person-centred health care for all people.
Professor Davidson's previous academic leadership positions include Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and Professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States. Her current leadership roles, include Chair of the NSW International Education Advisory Board, Chair of Her Heart and membership on the Research Australia board.
Richard Griffiths is the Executive Director Workforce Planning and Talent Development, NSW Ministry of Health.
The Executive Director Workforce Planning and Talent Development is responsible for leading the development of strategies and plans that prepare the health workforce now and into the future. The Branch is responsible for strategic workforce planning, operational workforce supply strategies, workforce insights and performance reporting, developing culture and employee
experience strategies, diversity inclusion and belonging, Aboriginal employment, talent development strategies for the health system, strategic recruitment, workforce governance,
connection with professional workforce bodies including registration authorities and medical colleges, and collaboration with the commonwealth and state jurisdictions on workforce programs.
Professor Cheryl Jones is a world-renowned paediatric infectious diseases physician clinician-scientist and health and medical educator. A Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health & Medical Sciences, she has secured over $35 million in peer-reviewed funding and published more than 170 peer reviewed publications. Her research, particularly on childhood encephalitis, vaccination and mother to child transmission of infections, has significantly influenced global health policy. Professor Jones has held senior executive positions at leading University and Health and Medical research institutions, professional societies and statutory authorities and actively contributes to government policy and clinical practice guidelines. She is a Director of the Australian Medical Council, an Executive Member of the AAHMS Council and a Director of the Ramsay Health Care Research Foundation. Her work in supervising postgraduate students has earned her recognition for mentoring excellence.
Megan is a former big 4 consulting partner and executive-level organisation and workforce transformation leader with deep expertise in developing and executing strategy, embedding change and creating value.
She has worked across the Australian healthcare system ,including with the federal and state governments, health insurers and health service providers. Her experience includes developing workforce strategies, creating new work models and capabilities and enabling leaders to sustain work and workforce changes.
Megan has a deep belief in cross-functional operating discipline and creating work environments where people can be the best versions of themselves, ultimately defining the commercial success of an organisation.
