Neuroscience Advanced Clinical Imaging Service (NACIS) is the translational clinical and research program embedded in the Neurosurgery Department at The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH). Although officially established in January 2020, NACIS emerged from work since 2012 which was supported by a Clinical Paediatric Neurosurgery Research Fellowship from the RCH Foundation.
The Complex Movement Disorders program at the Royal Children’s Hospital commenced in 1997 and has evolved since then. It is currently funded by RCH Foundation and the fundraising efforts of A/Prof Andrew Kornberg’s Fly for the Kids event in 2017. The program allows coordinated multidisciplinary assessment and management of children with movement disorders and associated neurodevelopmental comorbidities.
Perioperative medicine (POM) is the multidisciplinary, integrated care of patients from the moment surgery is contemplated through to recovery. Perioperative Medicine is a key strategic focus of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA).
Surgery is essential for improving a nation’s health, but it has been under-recognised in global public health initiatives. In 2015, three important events highlighted this: The World Bank cost-effectiveness analysis of surgery and anaesthesia, the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery, and the World Health Assembly resolution on Safe Surgery and Anaesthesia.
Many children each year are born with complex congenital colorectal conditions. The most common of these are anorectal malformations (ARM) and Hirschsprung disease (HD), which each affect 1 in 5000 children. These children require multiple operations, and there is increasing recognition that they may require life-long care.
Although traumatic spinal cord injury in children is uncommon, effects are lifelong, and almost all aspects of daily function are affected. Recent advances in trauma management, surgical techniques, and rehabilitation interventions aim to preserve spinal function and optimise long term outcomes.
Dr Marc Levitt has spent the last 20 years educating surgeons, physicians, nurses and families about the complexities of congenital colorectal conditions. A large part of his time has been spent travelling nationally and internationally to teach operative techniques and management strategies for these complex children.
Surgical care has long been viewed by donors as too costly and complex for low-resource health systems, apart from narrowly focused programs such as surgical contraception. The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery is an extensive review of the need for surgical care in low-resource health systems, the cost-effectiveness of these services, and the Commission’s framework for surgery that is safe, affordable, and timely.
Hypospadias is a common malformation in boys with potential long-term consequences. Despite better understanding of the malformation and refinement of surgery, the results can remain unsatisfactory, especially in proximal hypospadias. Prof Martin Koyle will present the journey of an experienced pediatric urologist involved in surgical correction and follow-up of patients with hypospadias.
This Grand Round will outline the important and well established principles in the management of blunt abdominal trauma (something old), and demonstrate the degree to which these tenets are affirmed, challenged or refuted by advances in understanding and practice (something new).
