Conference welcome and opening plenary
Tracks
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
| Thursday, June 25, 2026 |
| 5:00 PM - 7:10 PM |
| Mossman |
Speaker
Affiliate Professor Sue Brumby
Researcher
National Centre For Farmer Health
Keynote - Paddock to patient: from farm realities to healthcare
Abstract
Farmer health is shaped long before a person arrives at a clinic or emergency department. Homes, machinery, equipment, paddocks, stockyards, and shearing sheds are where risk is experienced, injuries occur, and decisions about care are first made.
Drawing on experience across Australia and internationally, this keynote examines how agricultural life, occupational risk, and health service response intersect in ways that are often under‑recognised. While clinical presentations may look similar across urban and rural settings, agriculture creates distinct patterns of injury, illness, and help‑seeking behaviour and options. Differences in systems, language, and service structures can mean that critical occupational context is not consistently recognised, recorded, or communicated across services.
Using farm‑related needlestick injuries as a key example, the presentation explores how these events can be under‑recognised, mismanaged and inconsistently coded, particularly when agricultural products such as oil‑based products are involved. These gaps have implications for clinical care, surveillance, workforce safety, and system learning.
Importantly, this keynote focuses on opportunity: improving recognition of occupational context, strengthening communication across health, agriculture, education, and community systems, and enabling more connected, cross‑sectoral, place‑based responses.
The aim is to ensure that critical information from farm work and rural life is not lost along the care journey, but is visible, understood, and acted on within and across systems.
Drawing on experience across Australia and internationally, this keynote examines how agricultural life, occupational risk, and health service response intersect in ways that are often under‑recognised. While clinical presentations may look similar across urban and rural settings, agriculture creates distinct patterns of injury, illness, and help‑seeking behaviour and options. Differences in systems, language, and service structures can mean that critical occupational context is not consistently recognised, recorded, or communicated across services.
Using farm‑related needlestick injuries as a key example, the presentation explores how these events can be under‑recognised, mismanaged and inconsistently coded, particularly when agricultural products such as oil‑based products are involved. These gaps have implications for clinical care, surveillance, workforce safety, and system learning.
Importantly, this keynote focuses on opportunity: improving recognition of occupational context, strengthening communication across health, agriculture, education, and community systems, and enabling more connected, cross‑sectoral, place‑based responses.
The aim is to ensure that critical information from farm work and rural life is not lost along the care journey, but is visible, understood, and acted on within and across systems.
Biography
Affiliate Professor Sue Brumby, PhD, MHM, GCert SciComm, RN, RM, FAICD
Sue Brumby is an internationally recognised leader in farmer health, rural wellbeing, and primary prevention. With over 20 years’ experience working alongside farming families across every Australian state — and managing her own family beef and wool enterprise — she brings unique clinical insight and genuine on-farm credibility to rural health.
Sue completed her PhD on the health, wellbeing and safety, of farm families across diverse Australian agricultural industries, providing one of the most comprehensive national studies. She was the Founding Director of the National Centre for Farmer Health, leading the organisation for 13 years and establishing Australia’s first Graduate Certificate in Agricultural Health and Medicine, building workforce capability and cultural competence for professionals working in agricultural communities. She has secured over $12 million in research and program funding,(inlcuding NHMRC and ARC) led initiatives including Sustainable Farm Families, and supervised Honours, Masters, and PhD students, shaping the next generation of rural health leaders.
Sue has held senior executive roles in regional health services, served on national and state boards, and advised ministers through policy and advisory committees. Internationally, she has delivered programs on the ground and collaborated with partners in Canada, Germany, India, Bangladesh, New Zealand, and Indonesia.
Working across disciplines — with rural doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, veterinarians, farmers, industry leaders, and policymakers — Sue translates evidence into practical change. From stockyards to stethoscopes, her work is guided by one principle: rural communities deserve healthcare that understands life on the land, and clinicians deserve the support to deliver it.
Dr Mark Little
Emergency Physician & Clinical Toxicologist
Cairns Hospital and NSW Poisons Information Service
Spotlight - Do you know what is in the farmers shed? When agrichemicals result in poisoning
Abstract
Agrichemical poisoning presents a distinctive clinical challenge for rural practitioners, where intensive agricultural activity increases the likelihood of both occupational and incidental exposure. Although overall case numbers are modest compared with pharmaceutical poisonings, the clinical severity of pesticide toxicity—particularly from organophosphates, carbamates, and certain herbicides—demands rapid recognition and decisive management. Rural clinicians frequently encounter patients with non-specific early symptoms such as headache, dizziness, GI upset, or respiratory irritation which can obscure the diagnosis without a high index of suspicion.
This presentation focuses on the clinical syndromes most relevant to rural practice. We will outline a practical approach, especially in environments where exposure may be unrecognised or under reported. Management principles—airway protection, decontamination, antidote therapy, and supportive care—are reviewed with an emphasis on resource limited rural settings.
This presentation focuses on the clinical syndromes most relevant to rural practice. We will outline a practical approach, especially in environments where exposure may be unrecognised or under reported. Management principles—airway protection, decontamination, antidote therapy, and supportive care—are reviewed with an emphasis on resource limited rural settings.
Biography
Dr Mark Little is an emergency physician & clinical toxicologist based in Cairns. He has published widely on envenomation, especially due to marine creatures, disaster medicine and toxicology. Mark is a national leader of Australia’s medical assistance team and teaches on a number of courses on humanitarian assistance, toxicology and toxinology.
