Surgery registries crucial to improving patient care, researchers say

by Anne Crawford

Monash University Central Clinical School (CCS) clinician-researchers are behind a push for the Federal Government to urgently implement strategies to overcome barriers to clinical quality registries for surgery.

Registries systematically collect data on markers of quality of care for a given procedure across multiple sites, identifying times where the outcomes for patients are outside the normal range (good or bad) by risk adjusting and then benchmarking performance.  That information is then used to inform quality improvement initiatives for patients.

Monash researchers bond with donors to fight rare cancers

Suzanne Neate (right) with her mother Teresa, who died in 2016.

Image: The Aftershock

by Anne Crawford

After Suzanne Neate’s mother Teresa died of thyroid cancer five years ago, Suzanne wanted to make an impact on the lives of other people similarly enduring high mortality rate cancers.

Teresa had spent time in rehabilitation; Suzanne thought of funding equipment, walkers or wheelchairs for those in care. “Then I thought ‘No, the problem is she shouldn’t have been there to begin with – how do you stop someone being there to begin with?’,” she said. “You research – everything comes back to research.”

Suzanne, CEO of The Aftershock, the not-for-profit organisation she founded in 2017, has joined forces on a research project into lethal oesophageal cancer with Professor Wendy Brown, Alfred Hospital surgeon, researcher and Head of Monash University’s Department of Surgery.

Aftershock: Wendy Brown, surgeon, talks about her work and her patients

Professor Wendy Brown in theatre

The Aftershock team write, "We're joined by Professor Wendy Brown, Director of Surgery at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. We go behind the masks and gloves, and get into Wendy's operating theatre regime, and the connection she makes with her patients."

Wendy Brown says, displaying characteristic empathy, "You've got to be always vigilant and always think, this is the most important operation I'm ever going to do, because, for this person, it is the most important operation you're going to do."

Listen to the Aftershock Wendy Brown podcast.

CCS BMedSc Honours student highest achiever in 2019!

Ms Gillian Lim is dux of the 2019 cohort

of Bachelor of Medical Science (Hons).

Congratulations to Gillian Lim on being dux of the year! Gillian is the highest achieving Bachelor of Medical Science (Honours) student in 2019 across all three cohorts of students that have completed the BMedSc(Hons) degree in 2019. These include the full-year cohort that Gillian was part of (2019FY),  the mid-year Clayton 2018-2019 cohort and the Malaysia Nov 2018-June 2019 cohort.

Gillian's thesis was "The physiology of reflux following sleeve gastrectomy". She was supervised by Professor Wendy Brown, Dr Paul Burton (both in the Central Clinical School's Department of Surgery) & Professor Geoff Hebbard (RMH).

Video of the week: Wendy Brown on obesity and its treatment

Professor Wendy Brown, Head of Central Clinical School (CCS)'s Department of Surgery, gave CCS's annual public lecture on 18 October 2018 on the topic of "Obesity: a serious disease that deserves serious treatment". See more:

• Video: https://youtu.be/QXln6_fQJ4Y 
• Public lecture: www.monash.edu/medicine/ccs/events/2018-CCS-public-lecture
• Wendy Brown: www.monash.edu/medicine/ccs/surgery-alfred/staff/hod-brown

Photo of the Week: Wendy Brown public lecture on obesity

Professor Wendy Brown, Head of Central Clinical School's Department of Surgery, gave CCS's 7th annual public lecture on 'Obesity: a serious disease deserving serious treatment', on Thursday 18 October 2018. The lecture was well attended, and for those of you unable to make it, we'll be publishing a video on our CCS Youtube channel. See playlist for previous public lecture videos.

Prof Wendy Brown on the success of lap band surgery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjvmnQekFW4&t=1s

Professor Wendy Brown together with colleagues has recently published a study on the outcomes of obese patients who had lap band surgery after 20 years. They lost around half of their extra weight and maintained the loss.