Professor Kerryn Phelps
Professor Kerryn Phelps, the founder of u, is a medical practitioner with more than twenty five years of clinical experience.
Known to many as "Dr Kerryn", she has been a familiar face to many Australians since the 1980s. Since that time she has appeared regularly on television, radio and in the print media informing the Australian public on a wide range of health issues. She is particularly focussed on bringing the message of integrative healthcare, public health and human rights issues to the public at large.
She travels frequently to speak to health professionals and to the general public on all aspects of health, wellbeing, the health system and human rights, as well as leadership and strategy for professional organisations.
In May 2000, she was elected Federal President of the Australian Medical Association, becoming the first woman to head this organisation and serving a maximum term of three years. During her presidency, Prof. Phelps focussed attention on important issues in the health system, including establishing an advisory committee on complementary and alternative medicine to develop a position statement on behalf of the medical profession highlighting the medical indemnity crisis and working closely with Federal and State governments towards a solution commissioning a far-reaching report into the Australian medical workforce which ultimately proved that there was a severe shortage of doctors and changing the way the government plans for the medical workforce of the future developing a report card on indigenous health encouraging discussion of the role of the health system in response to bioterrorism.
Prof Phelps is currently the health writer for the Australian Women's Weekly and writes medico-political commentary for Medical Observer Magazine.
Throughout 2004 she was an advisor to the Australian Computer Society and recently completed a review of the NSW Cancer Council. She is a member of the Board of the Cancer Council NSW and the Colorectal Foundation.
In 2003 Prof. Phelps was awarded the Centenary Medal for services to Health and Medicine. She continues to consult patients in her Sydney clinics and in 2003 was appointed Adjunct Professor at Sydney University in the Faculty of Medicine in the Schools of Public Health and the Discipline of General Practice.