News from the Chief Medical Officer

Latest news

• Research news

  Research Week 2022
  Another reason I’m prompted to reflect on seizing opportunities is because I recently attended the Surgical division research presentations as part of Western Health’s 2022 Research Week. I was impressed by the calibre of presentations from MD students, junior doctors and senior trainees within Surgical services and I left astounded that, despite all the challenges of working in a health service severely impacted by the pandemic, many staff were able to rise above that and seize the opportunity to participate in great research. This is a testament to the senior leadership within Perioperative and Critical Care but also the support provided by the Office of Research to enable this and I want to thank everyone for their contributions in this realm including Ms Meron Pitcher (AM), Justin Yeung and Bill Karanatsios amongst many others. If you missed the keynote address from guest speaker Professor Stephen Duckett, please see the attached presentation.

  Research successes
  Professor Tissa Wijeratne – Director and Chair, Department of Neurology and Stroke Services at Western Health – has been busy as usual. Not only has he published a new book titled Brain health for all, he’s recently shared his clinical experience of Post Covid-19 Neurological Syndrome (PCNS) at a symposium at the Doherty Institute in which fellow experts met to provide their insights into the neurological impacts of the disease. Tissa plans to generate three manuscripts from the symposium and publish them in the MDPI Brain and COVID-19 collection he is editing.

  Tissa – who has supervised advanced training of 15 neurologists since 2007 – also has much news to share regarding students he has mentored. PhD candidate Dr Richard Zhao has secured an Avant micro grant that will help him co-design a new outpatient model for Parkinson’s disease with a special focus on CALD groups. Dr Daniel Barber – a PhD candidate and emerging neurologist (and former medical student at Western Health who wrote his first paper with Tissa as a final year student) – has been offered a full PhD scholarship at the University of Melbourne. And Dr Lisa Zhu, a post doc student from CERA (Centre for Eye Research Australia), has been awarded a $200,000 grant to undertake a world-first study in our emergency departments from January that involves using retinal cameras and AI algorithms to detect life-threatening brain problems associated with headaches.

  Justin Yeung – Consultant Colorectal – has shared the exciting news that Dr Alex Besson, currently a surgical unaccredited registrar at Western Health, has been awarded a position in the Melbourne Academic Centre for Health MACH-Track program 2023. The MACH-Track program is a structured, mentored and fully-funded career development pathway for exceptional research-minded health practitioners pursuing post-registration clinical training or career development in any of the 10 health services affiliated to MACH. Alex graduated with a Master of Traumatology from the University of Newcastle last year, and in 2023 will commence his first year of general surgical training. Alex currently works at Western Health, where his interest in research led him to become one of the founding members of the Western Health Surgical Research Group (WestSuRG) research collaborative. Presently, he is particularly interested in colorectal cancer and colorectal surgery, and aims to further investigate the relationship between body composition and chemotherapy dosing and toxicities in colorectal cancer treatment. Through MACH-Track, Alex hopes to contribute to research that advances the care of surgical patients and also inspires others to consider a similar career path.

  I would also like to congratulate Justin himself, who has been acknowledged by the University of Melbourne for his dedication to lifelong learning and research with promotion to Professor of Surgery at the University. This is a truly well-deserved accolade and we are all benefiting from Justin’s ongoing enthusiasm and efforts in this field.

  Now to some funding success: Nina Leggett ICU Physiotherapist Grade 3 ICU Physiotherapist and PhD candidate, has been awarded a NHMRC Post-graduate Scholarship of $99,000. Her PhD is titled ‘Digital Health to Assist Recovery After Critical Illness’. Nina is enrolled in the Department of Critical Care, School of Medicine, University of Melbourne. I have the pleasure of co-supervising her with A/Prof Adam Deane, Dr Yasmine Ali Abdelhamid, and Dr Mark Meroli. This scholarship will be an immense help to assist Nina’s development as an emerging clinician-research leader, and to conduct high quality and impactful research at Western Health and with other collaborative sites. Nina is one of 62 successful applicants across Australia, so this is an incredible outcome and testament to her hard work.

  Looking ahead to next year, in partnership with Deakin University we will have a biostatistician dedicated to Western Health two days a week with two days allocated to Deakin University. Dr Tanita Botha will be arriving from the University of Pretoria South Africa in January 2023 where she is currently the Senior Statistical Research Consultant. Tanita completed her PhD in Mathematic Statistics Dirichlet extensions and Bayes considerations within aspects of information theory. This appointment will be an invaluable resource which – coupled with the Informatics and Innovations Analyst and RedCaP Administrator roles that are currently being advertised – will help further enhance our internal research capability and provide Western Health researchers access to sophisticated research tools and expertise to help further elevate our research impact.

• Awards and achievements

  Recently, one of our own paediatricians Dr Raj Khillan won 2023 Victorian of the Year recently and he is now in the running for 2023 Australian of the Year! I join the rest of Western Health in congratulating Raj on this incredible achievement, which is an acknowledgement of the fantastic work he has been doing in our CALD communities for several years now. Again, I am sure Raj never predicted where his life would take him as a migrant to Australia way back in 2004 but to me, he personifies someone who likely understands the phrase Carpe Diem!

  Finally, I wish to also congratulate Dr Andy Tagg on his recent appointment with Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) as the Deputy Chair of the Victorian Faculty Board. Andy joins Dr Barry Gunn, currently on the ACEM Board as Chair of Council. For those of you who don’t know Andy, he is an emergency physician, an advocate for mental health and wellbeing and founder of Don’t Forget the Bubbles. He also recently had a heartfelt and deeply personal piece published in the JAMA Medical Journal describing his experience as a carer and consumer grappling with bereavement and loss. Please take the time to read his poignant message that reminds me of another reason why I chose to seize the day and become Acting CMO; I can now more broadly, encourage all of us to do more- to involve our consumers and their families in shared decision making each and every day, to work through challenges many of us face as we strive to provide the Best Care for our patients and the WH community.

• Medical Workforce Unit update

  It’s been a busy couple of months in the Medical Workforce Unit (MWU) since our September update, and amongst everything, we managed to move our offices to a new location in Footscray, with the ‘whole’ team now located near the Main Reception. Please do drop in and say hi when you have a chance. Although the door is closed (due to our location and public access), we’re always here for you, just ring the doorbell!

  In term 3, we trialled some improvements to Roster On (for areas that are not timesheet based). We will continue to build on this work with an aim to have Roster On as our primary source of information for all JMS rosters. Having everyone on Roster On will also support timely payroll processing and reduce pay errors.

  Hopefully, many of you have already been logging in to Roster On to view your rosters and have found this helpful. If you find any roster discrepancies on Roster On, please contact your MWU Operations and Roster Coordinator.

  As we move towards the tail end of recruitment, the MWU team is now working closely with our Directors of Clinical Training (DCTs) to prepare 2023 roster allocations across the three training streams (general, medical and durgical). We anticipate that these will be finalised in mid-December.

  The Medical Enterprise Agreements (EA) were ratified earlier this month, with the new Medical Specialists and Doctors in Training EAs taking effect on 3 November and 9 November, respectively.

  Processing of EA Backpay (Wages, Allowances & Patience in Bargaining Payment) will be processed in the upcoming pay periods (NW11 & HW11). In terms of implementation of other EA changes/provisions, we have established an EA Implementation Working Group to working through these and prioritise implementation accordingly.

  One key element of the DiT EA, is the new provision for Remote Recall, we are still working with Payroll Shared Services on claims and payment processes, and will advise JMS as soon as these have been developed. In the meantime, JMS are encouraged to maintain a log of Remote Recall activity when rostered for General On Call. As a general guide, JMS should record Date, Start Time/Finish Times, Patient UR and general comments/reason.

  To help support clinical units and JMS workloads, we have developed and recruited four Clinical Support Officers, due to commence in the next 2-4 weeks. The aim of the Clinical Support Officer roles is to have clinically trained International Medical Graduates (IMGs) engaged to provide ‘non-clinical’ support to JMS. Pilot units for the trial will include General Surgery, Urology, Aged Care and Orthopaedics.

  Finally, we still have JMS opportunities available for immediate start, in February 2023 or August 2023. If you know of any colleagues who may be interested in joining our team at Western Health, please ask them to contact the me via email Hien.Nguyen3@wh.org.au. Interested doctors should be eligible for competent authority or provisional registration with AHPRA.

• 2023 and beyond

  Western Health is growing at an unbelievable pace – as a doctor this can at times be daunting. How do we balance provision of high-quality patient care with our own professional, training or learning needs? There is no easy solution – but I do know that there are many of us who want to find a sweet spot that can balance both, and we are all willing to put our heads together and work on this.

  Russell and the rest of the Executive team are committed to improving and supporting many of the initiatives that will bring about a better future and experience for staff and patients alike. My team in Medical Workforce is equally committed to improving our processes that I know directly impact on the experiences of many junior doctors. Please read the Medical Workforce Unit update above to learn more about some of our improvement projects in relation to this. If anyone wants to share any feedback – good or bad – I urge you to get in touch with me.

  It’s been a tough three years since the pandemic started, there are lots of challenges ahead and many of us are exhausted, but I remain optimistic that there is also an ocean of opportunities on the horizon, not only in physical expansion as new facilities are built, but also in research, innovation and new models of care.

  I would like to make my hash tag #WestIsBest an everyday reality for all of us.

  Let’s Carpe Diem together!