ACEM Winter Symposium
 

FULL CONFERENCE PROGRAM

to download the full conference program


PROGRAM OUTLINE

Saturday 25 July
Sunday 26 July
Monday 27 July
Tuesday 28 July
Wednesday 29 July
Overnight Uluru tour
Workshops/Optional activities
Sessions/Workshops/Optional activities
Sessions/Optional activities
Optional activity

Welcome Reception
Free night
Conference Dinner



KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

VICTORIA BRAZIL - MBBBS, FACEM, MBA


Victoria Brazil is an emergency physician and medical educator.

She is a senior staff specialist at the Gold Coast Health Service in Queensland, Australia, where she works in clinical emergency medicine practice, and at the 'coalface' of teaching. Dr Brazil is also an Associate Professor within the School of Medicine at Bond University, where she is Theme Lead for “Doctor as Practitioner’’.

Dr Brazil special interests include technology in medical education, social media, and simulation based learning. Her research interests focus on utilizing simulation of patient journeys as a tool for improving patient outcomes.

She was previously the first Director of Queensland Medical Education and Training(QMET), within Queensland Health, focusing on medical education and workforce policy and strategy.

Victoria is frequently invited to speak at national and international conferences in both emergency medicine and medical education. She is a previous Fulbright scholar (2002) and received the ACEM Teaching Excellence award in 2008.


ROBERT DUNN


Bob is an Emergency Physician with 30 years of experience in clinical practice in a variety of settings who also has qualifications in management and applied languages.

He is currently Director of Clinical and Academic Emergency Medicine at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and is the Editor in Chief of The Emergency Medicine Manual.

He has previously served as Regional Censor for SA/NT, and on a large number of college committees and currently serves on the Senior Court of Examiners and Examiners Committee.

He has a particular interest in resuscitation, ultrasound, acute cardiology, trauma, organisational behaviour and rational decision making.



INVITED SPEAKERS

Tim Baker
Associate Professor Tim Baker is an Emergency Physician and Director of Deakin University’s Centre for Rural Emergency Medicine (CREM). He works at a regional and two small rural emergency departments in Victoria. He has spent his last five years researching small rural emergency departments, and working with government and non-government programs to advocate for the needs of small hospitals.

Stephen Brady
Stephen Brady is a rural general physician and rheumatologist. He has been Head of the Department of Medicine at Alice Springs Hospital since 2001.His interests include rural medicine, Indigenous health and mountain biking.

Will Davies
Will Davies completed his medical degree and early training in the UK. He moved to Australia and became the first person to sit the FACEM exam out of Alice Springs. Will has an interest in remote and hostile area emergency medicine. He has spent time working with military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as in mountain operations in Indian Kashmir. for the last 5 year he has been working in the Highlands region of Papua New Guinea, and more recently, Northern Iraq. When not overseas he lives with his family in Coffs Harbour and works at the local ED on a very casual basis.

Peter Deutschmann

Peter Deutschmann is a general surgeon and public health physician with considerable experience in rural and remote settings, principally in India where in earlier years (1982-95) he provided surgical and primary health care services for a population of 250,000 in rural north India.

In 2012 Peter took up an appointment as a consultant general surgeon at Alice Springs Hospital, Northern Territory. Through this appointment he maintains his interest and engagement in Indigenous health and the delivery of health services to remote and rural populations. In the decade prior this Peter led the development of the discipline of international and global health at the University of Melbourne, where he still remains active as a professorial fellow.

Kylie Dingwall
Dr Kylie Dingwall is a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at Menzies in Alice Springs. Her research has explored the neuropsychological, and contextual factors contributing to substance misuse and its harms in an Indigenous context. She has also been involved in the development of culturally relevant tools to measure and address cognitive and mental health issues in Indigenous groups.

Lucy Donaldson
Lucy Donaldson is an Education Assessment Officer at ACEM. Lucy coordinates Workplace-based Assessment at ACEM, and oversees the work undertaken by the members of the WBA Panels. Lucy works closely with the Assessment, Training and CRP teams to operationalise the new training program.

Lucy has previously worked in program coordination in the Not for Profit sector, as well as in Educational roles at Apple and the University of Melbourne.Lucy considers herself an early adopter, and enjoys the challenges and rigorous thinking that come with curriculum change.

Joseph Epstein

Associate Professor Joseph Epstein was prominent in the field of Emergency Medicine in Victoria when he was elected a Foundation Fellow of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine. He was the first College Censor for Victoria and was appointed Deputy Censor-in-Chief and Chair of the Primary Examination Committee in 1984. Associate Professor Epstein was President of the College from 1988 to 1992. The first Primary Examination was conducted under his direction and the framework he established for that examination remain largely intact to this day.

J
ill Faulkner

Jill Faulkner has worked across thirty years responding to children, women and men who have experienced violence, abuse and trauma. In this work she has been drawn to feminist, anti-oppressive and decolonising practices to develop ways of working across community based organisations that support practice that is located within a social and political context and supports the healing and reparation of women, children, men, their families and communities.
This work has taken her to the communities of the Pilbara for many years responding to the impact and effects of past government policies of forcible removal; to Melbourne managing a domestic violence service supporting women and children who have experienced gendered violence, the collaborative development of a healing service and sexual assault services and managing a primary health care service.
Jill is deeply committed to shared spaces with Indigenous communities that are able to support the development of a model of healing that is transformative for both children, their families and communities.

Sam Goodwin
Dr Samuel Goodwin is Acting Executive Director of Medical and Clinical Services with the Central Australian Health Service in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

After graduating from James Cook University, Dr Goodwin undertook further training in remote areas of the Northern Territory, completing fellowship of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) and recently completing the requirements to graduate with a Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at James Cook University.

Dr Goodwin maintains his clinical practice as a rural generalist at the Tennant Creek Hospital, GP anaesthetist at the Alice Springs Hospital and mainstream general practitioner. Dr Goodwin credits his time in Central Australia with providing him with the skills and adventurous experience he hoped for in his postgraduate years.

Stephen Gourley

Stephen is the Director of the Alice Springs Emergency Department and has a commitment to rural and remote medicine and Indigenous health. He has a broad range of interests, including leadership and education. Stephen has a Masters in Health Administration with an interest in medical ethics and law as well as patient quality and safety. He also has a Graduate diploma in Medical Education which ties in well with management skills. Interestingly both are related to communication and behaviour change. He is a senior lecturer with both Flinders and UQ medical schools. Stephen is the NT Faculty Chair for ACEM and sits on a number of committees as well as being the AMA NT Vice President. Outside of work he enjoys snow skiing, travel and good company.

Tim Henderson

Dr Tim Henderson grew up in central Africa, moved to the UK in his teens and did his medical and eye training in the UK. He did a corneal research fellowship with Professor Coster in Flinders Medical Centre in 1998. He worked as an NHS consultant ophthalmologist in Yorkshire before taking on the challenge of head of the eye department in Alice Springs Hospital in July 2000. He visits numerous remote communities each year on the specialist outreach program. He is a Senior Lecturer in ophthalmology with the NT Clinical School, Flinders University and supervises the RANZCO accredited training eye registrars and Fred Hollows Foundation Fellows. He is keen to develop a sustainable regional eye service to allow timely access to high quality eyecare. He sits on various local and national vision related committees to help drive this. He has 2 children at university and enjoys time at home with his wife, a highly respected GP educator and medical author, and 2 fluffy dogs. He would like to spend more time on the golf course to keep his handicap in single figures.

Paul Helliwell
Dr Paul Helliwell has been a staff specialist at Alice Springs Hospital since 2003. Prior to that worked in New Zealand at Christchurch and Invercargill. Previously he has worked as a general practitioner in the UK, Tristan da Cunha, and on the Chatham Islands, New Zealand. Dr Helliwell is the Director of Clinical Training for Alice Springs.

Dr Helliwell has an interest in frequent attenders and published a paper on this. Many patients who are frequent attenders suffer from alcohol abuse disorder. In central Australia, renal disease also results in many patients attending repeatedly.

Dr Helliwell has been collecting reliable figures for episodes of domestic violence since 2007. This is closely tied up with alcohol abuse issues. The figures for alcohol abuse have also been collected by the Emergency Department at Alice Springs Hospital.

Anna Holdgate
Associate Professor Holdgate is an Emergency Physician who divides her work between research, teaching and clinical Emergency Medicine. She is the director of the Emergency Medicine Research Unit at Liverpool hospital, an executive editor for Emergency Medicine Australasia journal and a senior College examiner. She was awarded the ACEM Teaching Excellence award in 2013 and a recipient of the John Gilroy Potts award for research in 2014. She hovers half way on the spectrum from luddite to early adopter, but at the time of writing is still contemplating a name for her twitter handle.

Cheri Hotu
Cheri Hotu is an endocrinologist and general physician based at Alice Springs Hospital.  She is also part of a diabetes outreach team, delivering care to remote communities.  She holds a post doctoral research fellowship with Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute Central Australia.  Her research interests include finding effective models of healthcare delivery in diabetes care to delay the progression of cardiovascular and renal disease in Indigenous populations. 


Geoff Isbister

Geoff Isbister is a Clinical Toxicologist and Emergency Physician at the Calvary Mater Newcastle. He is a clinician researcher funded by an NHMRC Research Fellowship with major interests in clinical toxicology, including multicentre studies on snake bite, spider bite and drug overdose. His is part of a clinical toxicology collaboration that has an NHMRC Program grant for $6.8million. Much of his research challenges long held views about the treatment of poisoned and envenomed patients, making clinicians re-look at what evidence there is for various treatments and why we use various treatments. He has published over 220 peer reviewed original research publications, as well as reviews in the Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine.

Richard Johnson
Rich Johnson is an emergency physician who trained in both the UK and Australia with a long standing interest in delivering medical care to Indigenous populations in remote and austere environments having worked in mission hospitals, with mountain rescue, the UK HEMS service GNAAS as well as currently being Director of the Alice Springs Retrieval service.

Martin Kelly
Martin Kelly is a doctor, ethicist and storyteller… and a remote practitioner working for the last fifteen years with Nganampa Health Council, the Indigenous-run health service for the semi-traditional communities on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yangkuntjatjara Lands of Central Australia. Martin has attempted to balance a research interest in trust and the importance of the interpersonal relationship as the locus of the work of medicine with the realities of remote indigenous medical practice

Rosalie Kunoth-Monks
Until the age of nine, Rosalie Kunoth-Monks lived on remote Utopia Station in the Northern Territory where she learnt the Aboriginal laws of her tribe, the Amatjere people. Her father insisted she attend school in Alice Springs, where in 1953 she was discovered by filmmakers Charles and Elsa Chauvel. Rosalie won the lead role in Jedda, a film that became an Australian classic.

Filming took Rosalie away from the life she had known. Though for a year she was exposed to totally new and bewildering experiences, once production was completed she resumed her former life for a time.

Rosalie became increasingly attracted to the Anglican Church. In 1960 she moved to Melbourne, joined the Community of the Holy Name and became a nun. After ten fulfilling years in the convent, Rosalie left to set up the first Aboriginal hostel in Victoria. In 1970 she married, settled in Alice Springs and became involved in social work and politics.

The then Northern Territory Chief Minister, Paul Everingham appointed her an adviser on Aboriginal affairs. Rosalie stood for election to the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in 1979, in order to fight the proposed construction of a dam which threatened sacred land. Although not elected, she continued to oppose the dam, which remained a hot issue for another decade. The issue was finally resolved in 1992 when plans for the dam were abandoned.

Recently Rosalie returned to Utopia Station, where she now lives while continuing to fight for the advancement of her community and her people.

Nicole Liesis
Nicole is passionate about improving the health of our workplace as a means to delivering better health care for patients. She has been working with 50 FACEMs over the last 2 years as part of the ACEM Mentoring Champions Program. She has been involved in defining and refining how quality mentoring can be provided in the Emergency Department setting. Currently working part-time at Joondalup Health Campus in Perth, one of the busiest EDs in the country, she has established a structured mentoring program to support Registrars and Consultants. She feels that developing a constructive and supportive approach in our team-based environment is essential if we are to sustain an engaged, productive work-force in Emergency Medicine.

Liz Mowatt

Liz Mowatt took up the job as Director of Emergency Medicine at Alice Springs Hospital in January 2000. It was her first appointment as a fellow, and it made her the first FACEM in Central Australia. Over the next 10 years, there were many changes in the town and the hospital, while she oversaw many developments in the Emergency Department itself. Although she now lives and works in Far North Queensland, her time in Alice has left a deep impression on her practice, her passions, her other professional roles and her life in general. Since she left in October 2009, she has only been back for one night, as she knows a part of her heart will be in Alice forever, and it is possible the Centre will grab her again and not let go. She did bring two things to the coast with her that keep her strong and focused these days, her daughter Sophie who was born in Alice, and Sophie’s father, who she first met in that outback town.

Rex Neindorf
Rex grew up in the lush Riverland town of Berri in South Australia. Family members were allergic to dogs and cats (luckily) so the young reptile enthusiast brought home lizards instead. This interest in reptiles led to Rex studying Conservation and Park Management at the University of South Australia.

After graduating Rex took up a position as Reptile Keeper at Bowman Park in the mid north of South Australia where he plied his trade for three years. Leaving Bowman Park he moved to Glendambo in far north SA staying for another three years with 29 other people, 22,500 sheep and 2 million flies.

In 1997 Rex moved to Alice Springs with a view to opening his own Reptile Park which was achieved in January 2000 with the opening of the Alice Springs Reptile Centre. 30,000 people visit the Reptile Centre annually with the most famous including Sir David Attenborough and the late Steve Irwin.

The Reptile Centre houses over 200 reptiles comprising over 60 species and consistently rates as one of Alice’s top attractions. The Reptile Centre operates the towns reptile removal service, provides animals for film and television work, undertakes venomous snake training courses and rehabilitates injured reptiles as part of Wildcare Inc. Alice Springs.

Chris Nickson (Participating in The Great Debate via Skype link)
Chris is an Intensivist at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and is the Monash SPHPM-Alfred ICU Education Practitioner Fellow. He completed his medical degree at the University of Auckland, and continued post-graduate training in New Zealand, as well as the Northern Territory, Perth and Melbourne in Australia. He is also an emergency physician and has completed further training in clinical toxicology and clinical epidemiology. He is involved in coordinating The Alfred ICU education programme, including the In Situ Simulation programme, convenes the 'Critically Ill Airway' course and teaches on many other Alfred ICU courses. He edits the Alfred ICU’s education website, INTENSIVE, and is co-creator of free open-access medical education (FOAM) projects such as Lifeinthefastlane.com, the RAGE podcast and the SMACC conference. On Twitter, he is @precordialthump.

Claire Roche
Dr Claire Roche (pronounced Roach) is an advanced trainee in Emergency Medicine at the Gold Coast University Hospital in Queensland. Originally qualifying in the UK back in 2004 where the surf is a little colder, she has moved to warmer climates in 2008 and has been providing medical cover at the world surfing league events for over three years whilst working at the same time in one of the busiest emergency departments in Queensland. She has had publications in the BMJ and BMJ sport several times as well as online surfing journals such as surfline for her work in remote areas and surfing events.


Barbara Shaw

Barbara Shaw was born in Alice Springs, a descendent of the Warramunga, Kaytetye, Arrernte and Warlpiri people, and a 4th generation town camper.

One of 7 siblings, she has worked tirelessly as an advocate for human rights and the environment.

In the past 7 years she has travelled twice to the UN in New York for the Permanent Forum on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to the Durban review in Ireland, Geneva and most recently this year to Canada. She is a founder of the Intervention Rollback Action Group, has been a Greens’ candidate, is on several boards (CAAMA, CLC and Tangentyere) and is currently working as Coordinator for the Womens Committee of Tangentyere Council working with town camp women on community safety and tackling domestic and family violence.

Penny Stewart
Penny Stewart is the director of Alice Springs Intensive Care where she has been working for 10 years. Special interests are in Aboriginal Health and developing intensive care services in rural and remote areas.

Previously has worked as a consultant in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney (as an Intensivist) and Children’s Hospital (as an anaesthetist).
Other interests are in developing educational and research opportunities in rural areas and in rural clinical schools. For this work was awarded the Burns- Apler Teaching Award 2009 (Flinders University) and received the Northern Territory clinical educator of the year 2013.

Shane Tan
Dr. Shane Tan is an emergency staff specialist at Alice Springs Hospital and has been a juggler for over 15 years. He has attended several international juggling conventions and helped organise the Sydney Juggling Convention for several years. He has taught beginner to advanced workshops on various juggling skills including ball juggling, club passing and contact juggling. Shane maintains a special interest in clinical education and has worked as a simulation instructor at Sydney Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre as well as recently completing a Graduate Certificate of Clinical Education (Flinders University).

Leeanne (Lee) Trenning
Lee Trenning is an emergency nurse who has worked across public, private and tertiary sectors as both a nurse and an educator. She is the current National Executive Director of the College of Emergency Nursing Australasia (CENA) and the QLD CENA Branch President. Lee‘s current role is as the Nurse Educator with Retrieval Service Queensland and has been the CENA representative on the ACEM Quality Standards working group.

Amelia Turner
Amelia Turner, Angangkere (Traditional Healer) – Amelia was born and grew up at LtyentyeApurte (Santa Teresa). She went to school at Santa Teresa and in Melbourne. She lived in Maningrida for about 10 years. Amelia’s parents were and are both senior cultural leaders. Amelia is following in their footsteps, as a cultural leader, traditional healer (Angangkere) and leading artist. She sits on a number of boards. Amelia has played a key role supporting Akeyulerre’s Angkwerre-Iweme (Traditional Healing) Project over the past four years. In 2014 she was awarded Indigenous Person of the Year by the Alice Springs NAIDOC Week Committee for her tireless service to her community.


Camilla Tuttle
D
r Camilla Tuttle is a post-doctoral researcher at Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute Central Australia. She has a PhD in asthma epigenetics from the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Her interest in epigenetic research has focused on the interplay between environment and genetics, and how that can
contribute to disease. Her current research is focusing on improving the diagnosis, management and treatment of cardiovascular diseases and other chronic diseases within the Indigenous population of Central Australia.
 
Hilary Tyler
Hilary Tyler is a FACEM who has worked in Alice Springs for the past 10 years, and is somewhat passionate about Indigenous health. She is a member of the ACEM subcommittee on Indigenous Health, was part of the Promoting Cultural Safety Programme and is doing her MPH in Indigenous Health. She is involved in campaigns for social justice around Aboriginal issues at a local and national level.


Julian Willcocks
Jules is an emergency physician in Gosford on the Central Coast of NSW where he also wears the DEMT hat. For the past few years he has also been coming to Alice Springs to work whenever he can squeeze it into his roster. He undertook the ACEM Mentoring Champions Program last year and subsequently set up a mentoring program in Gosford ED. Following on from this he is expanding the mentoring to a hospital wide program for new interns which is due to start at the beginning of next year. He is studying coaching training through the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership to complement the mentoring process. He is a founding director of the Twice the Doctor charity and when not working likes to indulge his alternate career of playing poker or spend time at the beach.


Maureen Williams

Maureen comes to the Symposium as a patient advocate with more than 40 year experience within the health system – she has lived with Addisons disease and has been admitted to A&E, well over 100 times.

In the early days of her illness, she founded the Sydney chapter of the Australian Addisons Disease Support Group – meeting at Westmead and Royal North Shore, organising Endocrinologists to share knowledge.

With a background as a classical singing performer and a post graduate degree in counselling – Maureen has been involved in working with the Australian Institute for Patient and Family Centred Care – speaking at Conferences, Meetings and Symposiums in various fields of the health system.

She was recently invited to join ACEM in the capacity of patient advocate and has been delighted to be able to contribute to The Quality Standards document.

Michelle Withers
Sydney-trained Emergency Physician based in Alice Springs since 2009. Interested in education, training, rural and remote medicine, and all things outdoors.