Dr Vallings winning Nelson Gantz Clinicians Award

Associated New Zealand Myalgic Encephalopathy Society Inc.

17th November, 2016

Dr Ros Vallings, Lucinda Bateman, Sharni Hardcastle.

New Zealand's leading authority on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Dr Ros Vallings has received the prestigious international Nelson Gantz Clinicians Award

ANZMES (Associated New Zealand Myalgic Encephalopathy Society) is proud to report that Dr Ros Vallings received the Nelson Gantz Clinicians award at the IACFS Conference held in Florida USA on the 30th of October, 2016. The award is given in recognition to a physician who emulates Gantz’s clinical acumen, his passion for medicine, and his empathy for persons with ME (Myalgic Encephalopathy)/CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/FMD (Fibromyalgia Disease).

Dr. Rosamund Vallings is a general practitioner in Auckland since 1967 and specialises in ME/CFS and related disorders and is New Zealand’s leading authority in ME/CFS. Ros has been seeing patients with ME/CFS in New Zealand for more than 36 years with a patient base of over 6000 individuals. Dr Ros Vallings has devoted much of her time and energy in diagnosing and treating people with ME/CFS in her clinic and actively ensures that she is up to date with the advances internationally in research on ME/CFS.

Ros attends two International conferences annually where she writes up reports which are disseminated worldwide to interested groups. Articles by Dr Vallings have been published in major medical journals. She is active educating Medical Specialists, Physicians, Students, ME/CFS Groups and members of the general public about the illness throughout NZ. Patients have found her on-going compassion and support extremely valuable, especially as the illness tends to create isolation for many of them. General practitioners throughout New Zealand refer patients with ME/CFS to Dr Vallings because of her specialist knowledge in this area.

• Ros was a founding member and former president of the Associated New Zealand ME/CFS Society. She is now Medical Adviser to the Society.

• In 2008, she was awarded Membership of the NZ Order of Merit for services to CFS/ME in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours.

• Dr Vallings has written two books on ME/CFS. One book is specifically for teenagers while the other book concentrates on adults with the condition. Ros has sat on various international boards for ME/ CFS and has taken part in International groups writing physicians primers, pediatric guidelines etc. on the condition. She has been widely involved with various research groups and served on International committees for ME/CFS.

President of ANZMES Ms Heather Wilson

Dr Ros Vallings is one of the people who started ANZMES (Associated New Zealand Myalgic Encephalopathy Society) and has stayed on committee in various roles from President to Medical Adviser for 36 years to date. I have utmost respect for Ros for her dedication and support to those

who have ME/CFS, her selfless giving and her passion to educate the Medical Professionals in New Zealand. Her high quality conference reports are well known throughout the world, along with her work on ME/CFS various boards both Nationally and Internationally. Ros is very deserving of her award and both myself and ANZMES congratulate Ros for this outstanding achievement.

Dr Ken Jolly from Nelson

As a clinician Ros is peerless. She gives constantly of her own time and emotions to all her patients and can truly be said to be a very caring doctor. Her knowledge of CFS is encyclopedic and she has a real knack of passing this information on to others.

Ros is a truly dedicated clinician - probably the most dedicated doctor I know. Most of her clinical acumen she applies to her CFS patients in order to help them have better lives. Ros has now seen and treated CFS patients for over fifty years and this has been in a world where most clinicians and researchers have shied away from having anything to do with CFS. -Ken Jolly, MD patient

Warren Tate, professor of biochemistry, University of Otago

Ros Vallings has shared her extensive knowledge and experience of the illness, backed by her international service, with both practitioners and patients, not only in the Auckland region that has almost one third of the New Zealand population, but also throughout New Zealand. What sets her aside like a beacon from other practitioners is that she is able to support her patients with confidence and empathy, Ros is a brilliant communicator in her many talks and workshops spanning the public, medical students, senior health practitioners, and the health research community. She is the national expert on the illness at all levels and regularly reports back to such interest groups on the latest research findings that she has heard about at international conferences. She is widely respected and known nationally by patients, health professionals and researchers alike and is a pivotal person in the national disease organisation ANZMES.

ANZMES, who Ros Vallings has served in a voluntary capacity for over 36 years, is one of the oldest ME/CFS associations in the world, a New Zealand charity that that campaigns for and provides support and information to members of the community suffering from the debilitating illness ME/CFS. To learn more about ANZMES visit the web page on www.anzmes.org.nz.

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