Sue Ieraci

Sue Ieraci (born 1960) is an Australian doctor and emergency medicine specialist with more than three decades’ experience in the Australian public hospital system. She is a vocal advocate for improvements in emergency medicine, how it is viewed in the hospital framework and patient-centred care. Ieraci has been a member of the Executive of Friends of Science in Medicine and she strongly promotes evidence based medicine.

Personal life Ieraci was born in Sydney in 1960 to parents who were both immigrants from the Calabrese town of Roccella Ionica. Her first language was Calabrese but both she and her older sister began to speak only English in their early school years.

Ieraci is married with one daughter.

Career Ieraci has spent a career of more than 35 years in public hospitals in the South West of Sydney which are working-class areas with lots of migrants. Her career has included periods of management, committees, policy development, medical regulation and health systems consultancy. Increasingly her focus is on human relationships within the health care system, but she has always maintained a clinical role. During her career she has spent 25 years as an emergency medicine specialist. and from 2010 - 2012 was the Ministerial appointee to the Medical Council of NSW. She now works in Emergency Telemedicine, providing care to a wide range of patients including people in remote areas and in nursing homes.

Significance in the national health debate The Herald Sun has called Ieraci a "leading Australian doctor" and she has been called upon by the national media as a commentator on anti-vax topics, In 2015, she appeared in front of a Federal Parliamentary Committee in her capacity as a medical practitioner in support of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (No Jab, No Pay) Bill 2015. In representing FSM she has been the target of criticism by groups opposing her views. She has also spoken in the media warning the public against the Australian Vaccination-risks Network (AVN) and started an online petition to warn about the dangers of them. and in medical journals. At a meeting of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine she spoke of the burden upon emergency departments due to the level of inexperience of a number of junior doctors.

She is involved with the Network of Women in Emergency Medicine (NoWEM) group which is "a community of Emergency Physicians celebrating and promoting the advancement of women in medicine in Australasia." She is also currently working for better patient management in, and community expectations of, Australian emergency departments. Her publicly expressed opinions on emergency management issues have not been without criticism.

Works Textbook of adult emergency medicine (contributor) - Churchill Livingstone Elsevier Emergency medicine : the principles of practice (contributor) - Churchill Livingstone Impact of a chest-pain guideline on clinical decision-making - MJA 13 publications - Sue Ieraci's research while affiliated with Liverpool Hospital and other places.