Australian optometrist and head of the Australian Cornea and Contact Lens Society Margaret Lam has been appointed the 40th president of Optometry Australia (OA). Lam joins the board with OA’s new deputy president, Queensland optometrist and practice owner Fiona Moore, and Tasmanian optometrist and director Tori Halsey, who was reinstated as OA’s treasurer.
As the third female president in OA’s 103-year history, Lam said she was proud that this is the first time three women have been simultaneously elected for these roles in a sector that now supports 6,497 optometrists in Australia, of whom 57.6% are female. Lam noted that having an increasingly feminised sector carries challenges from the potential biases seen in other professions, where gender domination has morphed from one to the other. “I stand against discrimination of any nature and I applaud Optometry Australia for having the courage to investigate its prevalence through its #BreaktheBias survey and its ongoing commitment to eliminating it,” she said. “Fiona, Tori and I are delighted to lead a progressive organisation.”
Lam replaces Murray Smith, who resigned from the board in a surprise move to focus on his family, health and wellbeing, after nearly a decade of involvement in the association at regional and then national level. Lam thanked him for his leadership and said she was looking forward to working with the different state organisations, “to build the best future organisation possible to serve our members, our optometrists working at the coalface, the profession of optometry and, ultimately, our patients.”
