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Congratulations to our new Fellows and Honorary Members
During the Annual Scientific Meeting in Cairns, on the evening of Saturday, 17 October, we held an Awards Dinner to present the new Fellows with their Testamurs and Honorary Members with medalions. It was a most excellent evening with a delicious three course meal serving some of Queensland's specialities. And everyone enjoyed an extremely enlightening talk given by our guest speaker, Mr David Gillespie, bestselling non-fiction Author and Researcher on how to “Tame Toxic People”.
Here are the Honorary members:
The Honourable Justice David Collins
The Honourable Justice Ian Freckelton
George Kalimnios
And we'd like to introduce our new Fellow members (not all were in attendance):
1. Dr Melanie Armitage
Fellowship Award - Forensic Stream
Melanie completed training as an Emergency Specialist, and later in Clinical Forensic Medicine. She now works as both an Emergency and Forensic Physician in Brisbane. She has special interests in toxicology and education. In 2025, Melanie developed a Specialist Skills Term in Clinical Forensic Medicine for registrar trainees with the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.
2. Dr Ashleigh Bates
Fellowship Award - Forensic Stream
Ashleigh works as both an Emergency and Forensic Physician in Brisbane. She has previously worked as a Forensic Registrar at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and a Senior medical officer for the Gold Coast University Hospital Forensic Medicine Unit. She is currently a supervisor of a special skills term in Clinical Forensic Medicine for the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine.
3. Dr Christopher Chang
Fellowship Award - Legal Stream
Christopher is currently a locum in Acute Medicine/Intensive Care. He is also a Medical Negligence Lawyer. He has a Bachelor of Medicine and of Surgery, a European Diploma in Intensive Care, a Master of Clinical Ultrasound, Public Health, Infectious Disease Intelligence and Health Leadership and Management, a Juris Doctor and a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice.
4. Associate Professor Anthony Cross
Fellowship Award - Legal Stream
Anthony is a dual-qualified Emergency Physician and Intensivist having completed specialist training and been in specialist clinical practice since 2004. He is currently employed as the Director of Intensive Care at the Northern Hospital. He also works for the Coroners Court of Victoria in the Health and Medical Investigation Team and serves on the Mental Health Tribunal. His academic appointment is with the Department of Critical Care at the University of Melbourne.
5. Associate Professor Davinder Hans
Fellowship Award - Legal Stream
Davinder is the Director of Advanced Training in Youth Psychiatry in Western Australia. In the public sector, he is the Director of Youth Psychiatry at WA Country Health Service. A WA-trained doctor and psychiatrist, Davinder holds a Master of Health and Medical Law from Melbourne Law School (University of Melbourne), a Master of Youth Mental Health from the University of Melbourne, a Master of Forensic Mental Health from UNSW, and a Master of Affective Neuroscience (the neuroscience of mood and anxiety disorders) from Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Davinder has also completed the RANZCP Certificate of Psychotherapy Psychiatry, a Diploma of Occupational Medicine (Ireland), and a Certificate of Autism Diagnosis. He is the current Chair of the CPD Committee and has previously served as Director of Advanced Training in Psychotherapy for the RANZCP WA.
6. Dr Alan Jenner
Fellowship Award - Legal Stream (2025 award recipient)
Dr Alan Jenner is a geriatrician and general physician at North Shore Hospital in Auckland and is a clinical advisor to the Coroners Court. He has a special interest in capacity assessments of older people. Alan has been an expert witness in the New Zealand High Court and Family Court, and has provided many expert witness reports, particularly on post-mortem assessment of testamentary capacity.
7. Dr Jessica Page
Fellowship Award - Forensic Stream
Dr Jessica Page is an Emergency and Forensic Physician working in Brisbane. She is a supervisor of a special skills term in Clinical Forensic Medicine for the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and a facilitator for Monash’s national course Recognising and Responding to Sexual Violence.
8. Dr Dinesh Palipana
Fellowship Award - Legal Stream
Dinesh was the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland. Dinesh is a doctor, lawyer, disability advocate, and researcher. Dinesh works in the emergency department at the Gold Coast University Hospital. He is a researcher and senior lecturer at the Griffith University and assistant professor at Bond University. Dinesh is a researcher in spinal cord injury, co-leading the BioSpine research team. He is a doctor for the Gold Coast Titans physical disability rugby team. Dinesh was a senior advisor to the Disability Royal Commission. Dinesh was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2019, and the Queensland Australian of the Year for 2021.
9. Dr Jason Schreiber
Fellowship Award - Forensic Stream
Jason is a Senior Forensic Physician at the Clinical Forensic Medical Division of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. Jason holds the Master of Forensic Medicine; Master of Occupational and Environmental Health; Master of Health Service Management; and Master of Public Health for Health Policy, all conferred by Monash University. He also possesses the Master of Laws with specialisation in Human Rights law conferred by the University of London; as well as the Master of Science in Medical Toxicology conferred by Cardiff University, amongst other qualifications.
10. Dr Sharon Stay
Fellowship Award - Legal Stream
Dr Sharon Stay is a Sport and Exercise Physician with experience working across elite and high-performance sport. She considers career highlights to include serving as a member of the Australian Olympic Commission medical team at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and contributing to the development of the Australian Institute of Sport’s Female Performance and Health Initiative educational resources. Sharon has a particular interest in concussion management, athlete welfare and sports governance. Through her work in sport, she developed a strong appreciation of the legal and regulatory issues underpinning contemporary sports medicine practice, particularly in the concussion and athlete welfare space. She currently works in medical indemnity with Avant and is shortly to be admitted as a lawyer.
11. Dr Benedict Tan
Fellowship Award - Legal Stream
Dr Benedict Tan is a general physician and clinical pharmacologist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital who has an interest in the intersection between health and law. He is a senior lecturer in pharmacology in the Medical School, University of Western Australia, is involved as a principal investigator in early phase clinical trials and with forensic toxicology.
