Vernon Collins Oration 2020

Championing child rights amidst the chaos of COVID-19

Speaker

Professor Elizabeth Elliott, AM is a Distinguished Professor in Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Sydney; a consultant paediatrician at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead; and an NHMRC Practitioner Fellow.

Prof Elliott is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS) and the Royal Society of NSW (FRSN), with a current research focus on alcohol use in pregnancy and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).

In 1993 she founded, and is Director of, the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit (APSU), to facilitate study of rare childhood diseases. With Peter McIntyre she established the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance (PAEDS) system for inpatient surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases in 2007, which now operates in all states and territories.

She is an advocate for disadvantaged children, particularly with rare diseases and FASD, Indigenous children and children in immigration detention.  Prof Elliot has won numerous awards: The 2008 Howard Williams medal, the 2018 James Cook medal by the NSW Royal Society, the 2018 Excellence in Healthcare Award 2018, and is a Member of the Order of Australia.

Please join us for this very important annual Vernon Collins Oration.