Head shaving fundraiser event for Cancer Immunology Research

Christopher Chew, PhD Student in the Cancer Development and Treatment Laboratory (Shackleton Lab) has been growing his hair for the last 8.5 years and will be shaving his head on Saturday 9 December in Melbourne CBD as part of Hair Off For Hair Loss.

The event will be run with the City of Melbourne as part of the Little Korea Street Food Christmas Festival - What's On Melbourne, including food, live performers, face paint, balloon art and Christmas celebrations!

Funds will be directed towards hair loss related initiatives including cancer immunology research, supporting the alopecia areata foundation and skin health institute.

Unveiling Hidden Potential: The Underappreciated Benefits of Integrating Community Medical Perspectives into Research

Co-authored by Chris Ewert Community Representative and Evangelia Bishop, CaRE Coordinator

Monash University established the Consumer and Researcher Engagement program (CaRE) to facilitate mutually beneficial and meaningful connections between researchers and community members with lived experience as a patient or carer of the medical conditions being studied at the Central Clinical School (CCS)

CaRE is a planned process covering a broad range of interactions with the specific purpose of informing, consulting, partnering, and empowering community members to contribute to medical research through a number of approaches.

When pain after surgery becomes chronic

Authors: Paige Druce, with special thanks to community representative Chris Ewert for contributing to this article.

Pain after surgery is expected. Pain that lasts for days, or even weeks is normal, and usually nothing to be concerned about. But for some patients, pain can persist for months or even years and develop into chronic pain.

It can be hard to know when pain after surgery becomes chronic pain because the symptoms can range from mild to severe. However, the pain can be distressing and debilitating for the people it affects, including stabbing and tingling feelings, numbness, altered sensations and problems with sensitivity.

Chronic pain after surgery may depend on the operation undergone and is often difficult to treat, meaning there are no proven strategies for prevention. So, it’s one of the most important research priorities in Perioperative Medicine – the area of medical care that covers the time from surgery being considered, through the operative period, to the patient’s full recovery.