Forum's chair is new BMA president

16/12/24 . News

The Forum’s chair of trustees has been elected President of the British Medical Association.

Dr John Chisholm CBE, who has chaired the Forum’s board since April 2013, will serve a one-year term of office from June 2025. The BMA is effectively the doctors’ trade union as well as being a professional association. Its President is an ex-officio member of most of the organisation’s national committees, although the role is primarily ceremonial, ambassadorial and international.

A former GP, John has been involved in representing doctors at national level for more than 40 years, serving in a variety of roles including Chair of the General Practitioners Committee and of the Medical Ethics Committee. He said: ‘it is a great honour to be chosen as President. I believe I am only the eighth general practitioner to become President since the BMA was founded in 1832.’

Usually, BMA Presidents come from outside the organisation. They may be, for example, former Royal College Presidents or Chief Medical Officers, whose external contacts and networks can be helpful to the BMA. John is only the fourth 'internal' BMA President to be elected in his 48 years of membership. So it’s a particular achievement.

Well done, John - and thanks for all you do for the Forum.

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

Support us

Support us