Author Archives: pamela

Vernon Collins Oration: “The power of paediatrics to address child health inequity within a generation: reality or fantasy?”

There has never been a better time for children in the Australian policy world, with portfolios like health, social services, education, disability and treasury all sounding the importance of children for the nation’s wellbeing and growth. At the same time, almost every child health and developmental metric shows stable or growing inequities –preventable inequalities due to social, geographic or economic circumstances. What would it take to change the trajectory of Australia’s children and is it even possible?

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Towards National Paediatric Clinical Practice Guidelines

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are intended to improve the quality of clinical care by promoting evidence- based care, reducing inappropriate variation, and producing optimal outcomes for patients. CPGs have been developed at RCH since 1996. These CPGs were focussed on practice at RCH until 2011, when many were adapted for use across Victoria.

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Early Births in Australia: Potential Implications for Child Health

The gestational age at birth in Australia has slowly but steadily declined over the past 30 years, mainly due to increase in planned births (caesarian sections, inductions of labor). The effects of this decline in gestational age to child health are evident at many levels – intensive care, paediatric care, community, and school.

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Disentangling Perspectives: Moral Distress and Moral Compromise

Moral distress is a pervasive phenomenon in healthcare and contributes to healthcare worker burnout, turnover, and withdrawal from patient care. Moral distress can arise due to morally troubling everyday ethics issues or clinical cases we carry with us.

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Type 1 diabetes, Aristotle and the Jesuits – functional outcomes in childhood predicting adult sequelae

Arguably, the most important developmental outcome of childhood and adolescence is to grow a good brain. A stable supply of glucose is sine qua non for optimal brain development. Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is the exemplar chronic condition of childhood that disrupts blood and tissue glucose delivery. Thus, the assessment of cognitive, psychological, functional and morphological brain outcomes in T1D is apposite.

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Centre for Health Analytics Data Champions: “Ask not what you can do for the EMR, but what can the EMR do for the care we deliver”

Join us for a dynamic presentation showcasing the transformative journey of the Clinical Data Champion program at the Centre for Health Analytics (CHA). Led by Professor Jim Buttery and including Data Champions Katherine Frayman and Ann Le, and CHA Director Ross McKenzie, we’ll explore the program’s inception, evolution, and sustainability efforts.

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Reshaping Mental Health Resources: A Collaborative Approach

Join us for a panel discussion to explore how integrating the voices of children and their parents can transform the work we do in mental health. We will share our projects and insights, emphasising the impact of lived experience on the supports and resources we create. We will discuss practical insights for supporting lived experience in research, knowledge translation and clinical practice and challenge current assumptions to reshape mental health resources and how they are created.

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Localising efforts to improve care for children in a global world, to reach those in greatest need

Globally, we face many common challenges. Yet how do we address these in different health contexts to ensure that the right care reaches those who need it the most, in the right way? Decentralisation, localisation, “glocalisation”…many labels been applied to approaches, and debate ensues about which approach is “right”. Yet the aim is common – best care, best outcomes, everywhere. 

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You could make this place beautiful – Narrative Medicine in a children’s hospital

In 2023, Dr Mariam Tokhi and Dr Fiona Reilly launched Australia’s first Narrative Medicine course at the University of Melbourne, teaching medical students. In this Grand Round, they will share the vision they have for integrating Narrative Medicine skills into the worlds of university education as well as community and hospital medicine. 

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