University of Melbourne

Crowd-funding and other social media use by families

One of the growing worldwide challenges in paediatric health care is how to understand and respond to some of the many ways in which families of sick children use social media. This presentation draws together a number of strands of thought from my recent sabbatical in the UK, where the paediatric hospital staff are still experiencing the flow-on effects of the high-profile (and high-conflict) social media campaigns run by parents of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans. I will present some data from two recent studies of how families in UK and Australia use social media, especially crowd-funding, and then raise for discussion some of the ethical and social challenges arising from social media use.

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Influencing global immunisation policy through research in the Asia-Pacific region

Pneumonia is the commonest cause of childhood death throughout the world, especially in low and middle income countries. The pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) has been available for 19 years, but there are still many outstanding issues in its use: how do we measure the impact of this vaccine when the causes of pneumonia are many; how do we monitor serotype replacement in the post-PCV era; how do we measure herd protection; and how many doses of the vaccine are really needed for optimal protection?

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Campus Council: why, what, and how?

This presentation, by the leaders of the campus partners will present why the campus structure must value add to each of our organisations, and why the integration of clinical care, research, education, and community engagement are paramount to our collective goals.

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RCH University Academic Centre: what’s in it for your?

The presentation will discuss the proposed new structure for the University RCH academic centre. This presentation should be of interest to all scientific, medical, nursing, and allied health staff who are interested in education, research, and advocacy for the campus.

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