Katie Brake, Pain CNS Auckland City Hospital

Katie Brake is currently employed as a Clinical Pain Nurse Specialist at Auckland City Hospital.  Having trained in England as a registered nurse Katie practiced in the area of orthopaedic trauma until she relocated to Tauranga to join her family in 2009.  Upon doing so Katie changed her area of practice to PACU where her interest in pain management began.  She has since worked in an ICU where she was also the link nurse for pain management until joining the pain service itself as a registered nurse. Katie has almost 4 years’ experience in pain management and since relocating to Auckland she has been working in the PACU and as a Clinical Nurse Specialist for both the Adult and National Women’s Pain Service.

Margaret Cain

Margaret Cain is one of ten Professional Nursing Advisors working for the New Zealand Nurses Organisation. She started nursing a number of years ago and worked in Emergency Departments, Primary Health, Surgical Wards, Operating Theatres and some part time work in aged care.  She has had an interest in health law and ethics and has pursued this further in her current role. Her role is very diverse and as part of the Professional Nursing Advisor role she is involved in issues across all sectors. With over 46,000 members there are a wide variety of situations that we encounter in our work. 

Daniela Ciura

Trained at Manukau Institute of Technology, South Auckland, she has been employed at Counties Manukau Health in 2001 as Staff Nurse, and a year later she took on the role of Burns Resource Nurse for Perioperative area. Her leadership skills and planned approach to all issues perioperative have been recognized and from the standard responsibilities of the Nurse-in –Charge of theatre in a multi-specialty acute tertiary hospital, her role has grown with the opening of National Burns Centre in 2006, to being involved in planning of the requests of new equipment, developing new instrument sets and creating new processes for capturing the vast amount of consumables.

Her ability to share knowledge and successes, while promoting the high standard of work at CMDHB, have given her the opportunity to present at National and International Conferences on Burns related topics, including ‘Do staff experience dehydration during long hours in the burns operating room?’ research paper, and to present it in 2004 at International Society of Burns Injuries, Yokohama, Japan.

Since 2010  she has taken the Nurse Educator Perioperative role and she presented in March 2013 at Theatre Managers and Educators Conference, Napier, NZ, the ‘CMH The biggest employer in Manukau City: Finding ways to resolve overseas nurses integration’, addressing through education planners the issue 40-50% of nurses being overseas trained nurses. 

She has been involved in the work regarding the opening of the new Theatre Block with state –of-the-art 14 operating rooms at Middlemore Hospital and she has contributed with initiatives from previous experiences and current findings from national and international sources.

Since 2013she has taken the role of Associate Nurse Manager for Plastic, Burns, Maxillofacial and Hands in Operating Room, Middlemore.  Her passion for the management of burn patients intraoperative has continued over the years, and  she is unrelenting in searching for best care utilizing high standards and latest developments.  

Kerry Gunn MBChB DA(UK) FANZCA

Dr Gunn has an interest in Liver transplant and trauma anaesthesia, which has led to an interest in coagulopathy and massive haemorrhage management.  He is the chair of the Auckland Blood transfusion Committee. He has introduced a systematic change in blood product use throughout there hospitals, with guidelines on Massive Transfusion, TEG and coagulation management, red cell use and quality systems to reduce error and waste. This include the place of IV Iron as a replacement to red cell transfusion.

They are currently looking at the effectiveness of systems and education to change blood prescribing practices and reducing inappropriate transfusion. 

Dr Gunn is on the NZ National Council of ANZCA, the CPD Committee of ANZCA, and Chair of the NZ Anaesthesia Education Committee. He is a Final Examiner for ANZCA. He is a member of the steering committee of PBM of the National Blood Authority of Australia (NBA)

Robert Hawker BCom, BA, BN, PGDipHSc, NZRN
PhD Candidate – University of Auckland

Rob Hawker is the Associate Clinical Nurse Manager of PACU at Middlemore Hospital.  Rob’s team of 45 Registered Nurses provides Post Anaesthetic support to a brand new 14 theatre Operating Suite which opened in early 2014.

Rob is passionate about the PACU speciality and strives to ensure that all patients have safe, excellent and efficient nursing care.  He believes that it is equally as important to foster an environment for staff to learn, share experiences and to enjoy what they do.  

Rob is currently working on his PhD in Nursing through the University of Auckland where he is looking at the implementation of a new PACU score and the impact this has on surgical patient outcomes, the PACU Registered Nurse and the health care institution. The presentation Rob is giving at the PANNZ conference is the same presentation given at the International Conference for Perianaesthesia Nurses in September 2015, and looks at the background to his research.

Lisa Marshall

Lisa has been working as a Pain Nurse Specialist for the past 12 years. She started her pain career at Middlemore Hospital, where she worked for 4 years before joining the Pain Service at Auckland City Hospital where she currently work in the inpatient service. She is studying with Otago University and is slowly working towards her Masters in Pain Management.  Within her role at Auckland, she is involved with education of nursing staff, both New Graduates and experienced staff, to improve the understanding of pain and how it is processed by the brain.  She has a strong interest in the psychosocial component of pain and how we manage that within an inpatient setting to achieve optimal outcomes for our patients.    

Dr Lindsay Mildenhall

Dr Lindsay Mildenhall is a Neonatal Paediatrician and Clinical Leader of Newborn Services at Counties Manukau Health, Middlemore hospital.  

His Neonatal training included posts in the UK and Australia prior to taking up his position at Middlemore in 1997. He has been involved with the New Zealand Resuscitation Council for over 15 years with responsibility for Neonatal evidence based practices. He has been an ANZCOR delegate on the International Liaison Committee of Resuscitation Neonatal working party for the last 10 years and was a Neonatal Task Force Co-Chair for the 2015 review.

Louise Robertson, Sally North and Mark Freeman- PACU RN MMH

The title of Clinical Specialty Nurse in PACU at CMH was developed just over 2yrs ago and has evolved into an extensive role which includes (but not limited to) case management, mentoring, education and leadership, career development,  patient assessment, support to the ACNM and quality initiatives etc.   Currently we have three CSN’s in PACU coming from a variety of clinical backgrounds bringing a broad range of knowledge and skills to the team.  Mark Freeman has experience in Renal and Orthopaedics (theatre) and has presented at conferences in Australasia.  Louise Robertson has a background in medical, theatre, HDU/ICU and a long history in PACU.  Sally North who is new to the PACU CSN team brings with her experience in renal, burns, ICU and PACU.  Together we provide clinical expertise, supporting, developing and improving nursing knowledge and skills to enhance patient care.

Tina Saltmarsh  Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Ltd 

Tina qualified as a Registered Comprehensive Nurse in 1993 and completed her Master of Philosophy in Nursing 2010.  Her career began in Adult Nursing however she worked mainly in Paediatrics and Neonates until leaving to work at F&P.

With a passion for teaching her last role was as the Nurse Educator for Waitemata SCBU and carried varying portfolios in that role. 

She joined Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Ltd in September 2012 as a Product Specialist for Respiratory and Acute Care NZ wanting to explore different avenues and new challenges but still remain within healthcare.

She still believes nurses have a large role to play in the success of healthcare promotion and initiatives and the art of caring.

Lauren Sprenger

Cherry Wang, RN, BHSc (Nursing), MBA

Cherry is a staff nurse who is currently working at Starship Post Anaesthetic Care Unit (PACU). Cherry started her nursing journey in Starship Operating Rooms.  After 3 years of theatre and pre-op experience, she decided to join the PACU team to further expand her nursing knowledge.  She now works between Pre-op and PACU, and is passionate about making the theatre experience for children and their families as enjoyable as possible.