The Royal Children’s Hospital Children’s Bioethics Centre has recently appointed the first Bioethics Clinical Nurse Consultant, Dr Jenny O’Neill. In this Grand Round, we introduce Jenny, and explore the role of the nurse ethicist and the value they can bring to a healthcare service. We will highlight the unique perspective that a nursing background brings to ethical deliberation and clinical ethics consultation.
Over recent years the number of children with advanced heart failure from cardiomyopathy and congenital heart disease receiving treatment has increased considerably. The Royal Children’s Hospital has been the nationally funded centre for heart transplantation in children for 30 years. The RCH heart failure program involves medical, surgical, nursing, allied health and biomedical technology. Successful management of severe heart disease in children requires a detailed understanding of the aetiology, likely disease trajectory and balancing an increasing number of treatment options.
Demyelinating disorders of childhood include a broad range of conditions such as acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, optic neuritis, transverse myelitis, and multiple sclerosis (MS). When children present with a first demyelinating event, parents often ask the question: ‘Does my child have MS’?
Never in the field of health was so much learned by so many in so few months. This Grand Round will recap the lessons from last year, take stock of where we are in February 2022, describe the complex situation with vaccines, and look to what the year might hold for the pandemic and children in Australia and countries around the world.
We come to work each day to do the very best for our patients, however in some instances, patients are harmed by the care that was intended to help them. Such clinical incidents affect not only the patients and families, but also the well-intentioned staff. Problems are confounded if information is not provided and there are gaps in learning and improvement. In the busy clinical environment, incidents may be discussed but not thoroughly investigated to understand what happened and why.
Through a significant contribution from the RCH Foundation, the Clinician Scientist Fellowship program supports doctors, nurses and allied health professionals to undertake research up to 2 days a week for up to 5 years. The Fellowship enables talented, clinically qualified professionals who have gained a higher research degree to pursue academic research alongside clinical practice.
The Melbourne Children’s Campus is seeing an increase in the number of clinical trials of gene therapies, especially in vivo viral vector therapies. With some of these therapies now approved by the TGA, there is an expectation by families that these therapies will be available at the Children’s.
In recognition of Allied Health Professions Day on 14 October 2021, RCH is excited to extend the celebrations across the entire week of 11-15th October. Allied Health Professions Day first began in the UK in 2018 and has since become an international event to recognise and celebrate the Allied Health Professional community.
We have a National Roadmap, which includes COVID-19 vaccine coverage targets for the easing of restrictions. But how do children and adolescents fit into this, with regard the direct and indirect effects of Delta on their health and well-being?
This plenary session is named in honour of the recent Clinical Director of the Centre for Bioethics, A/Prof Jill Sewell. Professor Douglas Diekema will open the National Paediatric Bioethics Conference by considering the ethical underpinning of our conference theme, ‘Deciding with Children’. Deciding with Children is more than a vague abstraction or aspirational goal of children’s healthcare workers. Prof Diekema will demonstrate that Deciding with Children matters to the well-being of children and is a vital part of healthcare delivery. He will build on this foundation, using his clinical experience, to consider how best to authentically involve children in healthcare decisions.
