The roadmap for childhood tuberculosis: paediatricians and programmes

This talk will provide background of where tuberculosis fits into the context of the child survival agenda as well as the global tuberculosis control challenges. It will review the main challenges, both the need to do much better with what we have and the need for new and innovative tools particularly in diagnostics.

Mindfulness

This Grand Round will explore the principles of mindfulness from the scientific, practical and philosophical perspectives and explore how it can be applied in personal and professional life. Perhaps the simplest way to describe it is to say that mindfulness is the practice of paying attention:

Healthy Bowels are essential

In Victoria, over 1000 children are hospitalised with constipation each year. Nearly all of these are in public hospitals and hospital costs related to just constipation are $1 million per year. 10% of these children have multiple admissions indicating a chronic condition.

Emerging priorities of the National Children’s COmmissioner

Megan will discuss some of the issues raised during the Big Banter as outlined in her statutory report to parliament – the Child Rights Report 2013. These themes include: a child’s right to be heard; freedom from violence, abuse and neglect; the opportunity to thrive; engaged citizenship and action and accountability. She will highlight some of the emerging priorities on the office of the National Children’s Commissioner, relevant to these themes.

Football, meaning and well-being

John Harms grew up with three brothers who were all mad on sport. He was just as obsessed. The family was interested in scholarship as well. While working towards a PhD in Australian history, John started writing for various publications, often about sport. He abandoned the PhD to travel around Australia in his old Camira to follow the 1998-99 Ashes tour. The result was Confessions of a Thirteenth Man, a book about the place of cricket and Test cricket in Australian life.

Epilepsy Surgery and the Impact of Modern Neuroimaging

Next month, the 500th epilepsy surgery patient will be operated at The Royal Children’s Hospital. In this Grand Rounds presentation, Dr Harvey will provide some background to epilepsy surgery in children, describe the changing landscape of epilepsy surgery at the RCH over the last 30 years, highlight the important role of neuroimaging advances, and mention some of the complex issues the epilepsy program is dealing with currently.

The Melbourne Children’s Trials Centre; changing the landscape for trials on campus

Trials are an important aspect of establishing evidence for the effectiveness of new and established treatments. There are considerable challenges in doing trials, especially in children. This talk will outline some of those challenges. Successful and clinically important trials require carefully considered designs, experienced staff and substantial resources.

RCH Telehealth – Clinical experience and study results

An RCH study of 50 Nephrology telehealth video-consultations analysed the impact of telehealth on families and financial costs and benefits to the RCH and the regional clinician. The study indicated substantial days off school were saved; families or travel assistance schemes were saved an average $510 per consultation by avoiding travel; 20% of families were saved a flight and 22% of families saved an overnight stay.