Registration begins at 7:00am
Formalities from 7:30am-9:00am
Located at Fraser's Function Centre King's Park, 60 Fraser Avenue
This year's wonderful speakers include:
Professor Rhonda Marriott
Pro Vice Chancellor, Ngangk Yira Institute for Change, Murdoch University
Matrilineally descended from the Nyikina people of the Kimberley, Professor Marriott, AM has extensive senior University leadership experience, and maintains her professional connection with nursing and midwifery. She champions the translation of co-designed maternal, early childhood and youth research outcomes into national policy and practice to emphasise the strengthening of Aboriginal family futures through transformational research.
As PVC for the Ngangk Yira Institute for Change, she has drawn together a passionate team of Aboriginal and non-indigenous researchers for meaningful research partnerships with Elders and members from Aboriginal communities across Western Australia.
Dr Sarah Paton
Breast Physician, BreastScreen WA
Dr Sarah Paton grew up in a home adorned with walls of books and art. Her artistic interest began young, supported always by her mother, with crafts, drawing, making- art as mindfulness practices. Sarah studied Science and Medicine at the University of Western Australia, then later, Creative Writing, and worked several years in Perth hospitals, before moving to Melbourne and Boston. Sarah worked in inner-city general practice, paediatrics, and dermatology, the former often necessitating home visits to enable provision of care for marginalized communities. It was during these visits she noticed graffiti, and words, on walls of the high-rise flats and inside the elevators, examples of what we now call public art. Sarah has also supported scientific discovery, participating for more than 12 years in marathon walks, long cycling events, and one year climbed a large mountain, individually fundraising more than $250,000 for cancer research, in particular breast and ovarian. With a growing passion for women’s health, in 2015 she made a career step to train in breast medicine, working with BreastScreen WA, and North and East Metropolitan Health Services as a breast physician, and is a current member of BSWA GP Advisory Board. Sarah’s creativity has always been her background theme and is shaped by stories that need to be told. She believes in the duality of Art and Science, that art in all its forms, can provide a discourse of healthcare, with a language all its own, allowing accessibility to the narratives of illness, with the power to change perceptions of disease and health, and in turn engagement and progress. In 2023, following serious illness, the story unexpectedly became her own, with self-portrait “Memento Mori” winning significant recognition in last year’s Lester Portrait Prize.
