Melanie Anderson, Senior Imprest Technician, Pharmacy – John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle, NSWMelanie Anderson began her pharmacy technician career 25 years ago, with over 20 years in the hospital setting. Melanie currently works at the John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle NSW, as the Senior Imprest Technician. Staff training, development, and improving productivity are areas Melanie keenly supports for ongoing growth within her team. Medication safety with patient focus is a key motivation in her work. Melanie has previously been an observer on the NSW SHPA branch and a representative on the National Pharmacy Technician Network. Melanie currently holds a position on the NSW SHPA Technician Sub-Committee.
Dr Ian Bilmon, Haematologist and Bone Marrow Transplant Physician, Westmead Hospital & Sydney Adventist Hospital, Sydney, NSW
Dr Bilmon is a Haematologist and Bone Marrow Transplant physician who works at the Westmead Hospital in Western Sydney, as well as the Sydney Adventist Hospital. Dr Bilmon has completed a Masters of Philosophy in CAR-T cells, and is a member of the Westmead Hospital CAR-T team. His clinical and research interests include the development of CAR-T cells using non-viral vectors, clinical trials, and BMT outcomes.
Keith Bowman, Clinical Nurse Consultant, Electronic Medication Management Program, Metro North Hospital and Health Services, Qld
Keith Bowman is the Nursing Subject Matter Expert (SME) within the Electronic Medication Management (EMM) Program. His experience in the digital transformation of healthcare includes his present role as the SME for the Pyxis ES system, currently being rolled out in emergency departments, operating theatres, medical and surgical wards across Metro North, and previous positions as an educator and on the EMM Evaluation & Research Team. Keith is on secondment from his day job as a registered nurse in a busy Emergency Department on Brisbane’s Northside. His areas of professional interest lie in collaborative models of care, project management, digital health and identifying opportunities to upskill his teammates in ancient history, classic literature and applied philosophy.
Keith used to lead a grey and humdrum existence working as an IT Consultant in the city of London before he had a minor bike accident and realised there was more to life than AutoCAD and Visual Basic. He still loves Excel.
Dr Meredith Craigie, Staff Specialist, Pain Medicine, Central Adelaide Local Health Network Pain Management Unit, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woodville, SA; Dean, Faculty of Pain Medicine, Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, Aus
Meredith is a specialist pain medicine physician working in the Central Adelaide Local Health Network Pain Management Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. She is the Dean of the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and a Clinical Senior Lecturer at Flinders University in South Australia.
Meredith did postgraduate training in anaesthesia and intensive care in Adelaide, sub-specialising in paediatric anaesthesia in the United Kingdom. Meredith’s interest in pain medicine developed from looking after children with challenging pain problems when she was a paediatric anaesthetist at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide. She completed a Masters of Pain Medicine from The University of Sydney after a move to Flinders Medical Centre in 2004, ultimately taking up her current position in 2011.
Meredith also has a strong interest in medical education. She has fulfilled numerous teaching roles as a clinician and for the Faculty of Pain Medicine and ANZCA including leading the FPM curriculum redesign project resulting in the 2015 Curriculum and training program for specialist pain medicine physicians. She was awarded the inaugural Steuart Henderson Award by ANZCA for demonstrating excellence and providing outstanding contribution, scholarship, and mentorship to medical education in the field of anaesthesia and/or pain medicine. Meredith is the FPM representative on the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s Opioid Regulatory Advisory Group and the South Australian Controlled Substances Advisory Council. She is passionate about the transition from acute to chronic pain, pain in childhood and persistent pelvic pain.
Dr Alice Gilbert, Policy Maker and Strategist, Medicines Management Unit, Top End Health Service, NT
Alice is a clinical pharmacist with a specialty in Mental Health and she is the current Chair of SHPA’s Mental Health Leadership Committee. Alice completed her PhD at the University of Queensland within her area of expertise as a clinician-researcher. The aim of her PhD was to investigate the effectiveness of an Embedded Pharmacist Researcher and their impact on the Quality Use of Medicines. Her research was conducted using the embedded researcher technique and targeted areas which were identified during clinical work as a translational gap between literature and practice. Alice’s work demonstrates how a clinical pharmacist, embedded within a team, can identify problems, develop innovative interventions, and implement sustainable solutions.
Alice’s current role is a policy maker and strategist for the medicines management unit and is the Northern Territory’s practitioner member for the Pharmacy Board of Australia.
Alice’s roles have inspired her to pursue research whilst continuing to practice as a clinician. Her interests are in mental health, translational research, improving the continuum of care, indigenous health and quality use of medicines.
Associate Professor Gary Grant, Deputy Head (Learning and Teaching), School of Pharmacy, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Qld
A/Prof Gary Grant is the Deputy Head (Learning and Teaching) in the School of Pharmacy at Griffith University, teaching pharmacology across the Health Group. A/Prof Grant successfully completed a PhD from the University of Port Elizabeth South Africa specialising in Medicinal Chemistry and Cellular Biology in 2003. In 2010 Grant completed a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education that sparked a passion for learning and teaching innovation. His scholarship of learning and teaching now focusses on capturing a virtual walk-through of a patient’s journey through the healthcare system coupled with technology-enhanced learning. His practice incorporates the use of panoramic images coupled with mixed-reality, ‘choose your own adventure’ simulation, and gamification. In 2017 Grant was awarded a Group Learning and Teaching Citation for innovative and engaging activities. A/Prof Grant has been able to develop a range of innovative learning and teaching resources to support student learning in health disciplines through effective cross discipline collaboration.
David Hansen, CEO, Australian e-Health Research Centre, CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, Brisbane, Qld; Chair, Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA), Aus
David Hansen is the CEO of the Australian e-Health Research Centre, a joint venture between the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Queensland Health and CSIRO’s national digital health research program. David leads a research program of over 100 scientists and engineers developing information and communication technologies to improve the safety, quality and efficiency of healthcare. The e-Health research program tackles the challenges of the healthcare system across Data, Diagnosis and Services.
David is also the Chair of the Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA).
David is passionate about the role of information and communication technologies in health care and the role of Health Informatics professionals in developing a safe, high quality efficient and sustainable healthcare system in Australia.
Belinda Hapgood, Founder and Practice Principal, Belinda Hapgood Pty Ltd, Qld
Belinda Hapgood is one of Australia’s leading experts on trust and leadership in the workplace. For nearly 20 years, she has counseled and advised some of Australia’s largest corporate, government agencies and not for profits on the leadership skills necessary to build trust at work. She has also witnessed the fallouts from breaches of trust in the workplace and helps her clients rebuild broken trust cultures.
Belinda is the Director and Principal of her own workplace law firm and is an Accredited Specialist in Workplace Relations. She draws on her expertise in the boardroom and the courtroom to coach leaders in building trust to grow high-performance teams, and leverage trust to heal toxic cultures.
Belinda is a sought-out advisor to businesses struggling with complaints of workplace bullying, harassment, and discrimination. She understands how legislation and regulation are ill-equipped to resolve disputes between living, breathing humans and advocates for solutions that solve problems rather than create new ones.
Lisa Harris, Hunter New England District Antimicrobial Stewardship Governance Pharmacist, Hunter New England Heath, NSW
Lisa Harris is currently in the role of Hunter New England District Antimicrobial Stewardship Governance Project Pharmacist where she is implementing a health service wide AMS framework. She has worked in infectious diseases and antimicrobial stewardship for over 10 years at the John Hunter Hospital, a large tertiary referral hospital in NSW, as a specialist pharmacist before moving to a wider scope of practice in a district role. She has presented on a number of AMS topics internationally at the Asia Pacific Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, nationally at SHPA Medicine Management Conferences and Australian Society of Infectious Diseases Conferences and recently at the Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) Antimicrobial Forum in Sydney. She is also a member of the CEC AMS Executive Committee in NSW.
Associate Professor John Heath, Director of Paediatric and AYA Oncology, Tasmanian Health Service, Royal Hobart Hospital, Tas
Associate Professor John Heath MBBS BVSc(Hons) MS PhD FRACP is currently the Director of Paediatric and AYA Oncology for the Tasmanian Health Service, based at the Royal Hobart Hospital. In addition to a PhD in laboratory-based oncology, he holds a Masters degree in Clinical Trials from Harvard University. He has extensive experience in childhood leukaemia and lymphoma trials including the use of novel immunotherapies. He has previously held numerous Australian clinical research grants, including a number from NHMRC (investigating genetic causes of leukaemia), Cancer Australia, Royal Australasian College of Physicians (examining long term follow up of childhood leukaemia survivors) and the NIH-sponsored Children’s Oncology Group (COG). He also holds executive positions in ANZCHOG and is a Voting Body Member of COG.
Catherine Hughes, Director, The Immunisation Foundation of Australia, Aus
After losing her newborn son Riley to whooping cough in 2015, Catherine has become a passionate advocate for immunisation. Believing that no child should die from a vaccine preventable disease, she and her husband Greg immediately established the “Light for Riley” campaign, shining a light on the dangers of whooping cough and the importance of vaccination. This award-winning campaign has led to significantly improved whooping cough awareness in Australia, and Catherine’s vocal support of pregnancy vaccination has been influential in ensuring that Australia has one of the highest pregnancy vaccination rates in the world.
Determined to inspire further community-based immunisation advocacy and protect families from other vaccine-preventable diseases, Catherine helped to establish the Immunisation Foundation of Australia in 2016. In her role as director, she travels Australia speaking to parents, students, researchers and health-care providers about the importance of immunisation. Catherine is also involved in immunisation research, Chairing the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Community Reference Group and collaborating with researchers at Telethon Kids and the National Centre of Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS). Catherine is particularly interested in vaccine-hesitancy research and is an active member of the Collaboration of Social Science in Immunisation (COSSI) committee.
Dr Jacinta Johnson, Lecturer in Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia; Senior Pharmacist – Research, SA Pharmacy, SA Health, SA
Dr Jacinta Johnson is a credentialled Advanced Practice Pharmacist, currently working across roles as Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice at the University of South Australia and as Senior Pharmacist – Research within SA Pharmacy. In addition, Jacinta is the current Vice President of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia. Jacinta has previous experience practicing as a specialist high dependency unit pharmacist, in medication safety and in clinical education at Flinders Medical Centre; and experience in primary care, working within Drug and Alcohol Services SA and in community pharmacy. Jacinta’s research focuses pain medicine and addiction, and she has a passion for promotion harm minimisation initiatives across Australia.
Dr Christoph Lehner, Consultant Obstetrician and Fellow in Maternal Fetal Medicine, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH), Qld
Chris works as a Consultant Obstetrician and Fellow in Maternal Fetal Medicine at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH).
After completion of his PhD and basic surgical training he commenced specialist training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Germany before relocating with his family to Australia.
He completed his specialist training in Queensland and commenced subspecialty training in Maternal Fetal Medicine in 2016.
Chris is Queensland Co-Lead and Steering Committee Member of the Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Alliance, the world’s first national program aiming to safely lower the rate of preterm birth across its population. He is a member of the Safe Baby Bundle Education and Timing of Birth Working Groups within the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Stillbirth (Stillbirth CRE). Chris developed an institutional policy of delayed cord clamping in preterm newborns at RBWH and he is actively involved in students’, midwives’ and registrars’ teaching. He is a Senior Lecturer and Member of the Board of Examiners in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the School of Medicine – The University of Queensland.
His current research focuses on pathophysiology and prevention of preterm birth and stillbirth education.
Associate Professor Farah Magrabi, Leader – Patient Safety Informatics, Centre for Health Informatics, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Sydney, NSW
Farah Magrabi is an Associate Professor at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University. She has a background in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering with over 15 years’ experience in designing and evaluating digital health technologies for clinicians and consumers.
Farah is internationally recognised as a leader in the clinical safety of digital health and has made a major contribution to documenting the risks to patients by examining safety events in Australia, the USA and England. Her work has shaped policy and practice including a new ISO specification for the surveillance and analysis of safety events (ISO/TS 20405). She received the Sax Institute’s Research Action Award in 2015 for the international impact of her research on policy and practice to improve digital health safety.
Farah is currently investigating the patient safety risks of artificial intelligence (AI) in health. She is co-chair of Australian AI Alliance’s working group on safety, quality and ethics; and is a Fellow of the University of York’s Assuring Autonomy International Program.
Dr Elizabeth McCourt, Evaluation Pharmacist, Queensland Health, Qld; Associate Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology, Qld
Elizabeth (Libby) McCourt is a hospital pharmacist and PhD Candidate at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Libby’s research examines the preparedness of pharmacists for disasters and emergencies in Australia. In March 2017, Libby was deployed in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie where she saw firsthand the challenges that health professionals and patients face during times of crisis. Libby currently works as an Evaluation Pharmacist for Queensland Health and as an Associate Lecturer at Queensland University of Technology.
Libby’s research interests lie in disaster management, public health, and pharmacy practice in resource poor settings. Libby has volunteered within health and university sectors in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and the Solomon Islands.
Rachel Merigan, Pharmacy Technician Project Officer, Electronic Medication Management Program, Metro North Hospital and Health Services, Brisbane, Qld
Rachel has worked as a Pharmacy Technician for 13 years, with 10 of those in Hospital Pharmacy. Rachel currently works as a Pharmacy Technician Project Officer with the Electronic Medication Management Program. For the last two years Rachel has contributed to all three projects within the EMM Program; the implementation of Pyxis Machines into four sites across Metro North HHS; the introduction of MedChart (electronic prescribing) into Caboolture Hospital and the implementation of two Pharmacy Robots at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH).
Before EMM, Rachel was the Pharmacy Technician Team Leader at the RBWH. During her four years as Team Leader, she assisted in the expansion of the Technician workforce, establishing multiple advanced scope technician roles such as a Dispensary Supervisor, an Education and Training Technician, and was part of the Checking Technician pilot team. This experience provided Rachel with extensive knowledge of the technician framework and how valuable the technician team is to every Pharmacy.
Once Rachel joined the EMM team she was assigned to the Robot Project, which also included the introduction of the core iPharmacy robot interface, a first for Queensland Health. Rachel’s strong knowledge of iPharmacy and operational workflows allowed her to become the training lead. Rachel trained all 160+ Pharmacy staff in the core interface and created all the training resources and manuals for the iPharmacy interface. This documentation was a large body of work that had not been created previously and is now used to support the Pharmacy Department work unit guidelines.
Adjunct Associate Professor Steve Morris, Chief Executive Officer, NPS MedicineWise, Sydney, NSW
Steve Morris is currently the CEO of NPS MedicineWise. He was previously the Executive Director SA Pharmacy and Chief Pharmacist, SA Health, having responsibility for the delivery of a statewide pharmacy services to the public sector within South Australia. He has worked in numerous clinical and managerial roles within health spanning pharmacy practice, including community, hospital, primary care, industry, university and NGOs sectors. Prior to moving to Australia, he was the Deputy Chief Executive of the National Prescribing Centre in the UK. He is passionate about the Quality Use of Medicines and the implementation of evidence-based practice including the use of data and electronic systems to support best outcomes for patients. He holds an MBA and an MSc in Health Services Research and Technology Assessment. He is also a former SHPA Board Director and holds an adjunct A/Prof position at the University of South Australia.
Dr Sacha Muller-Botti, Senior Staff Specialist in Anaesthesia, Hunter New England Health, NSW; Instructor, Hunter New England Simulation Centre, NSW; Faculty for the Institute for Medical Simulation in Harvard, Boston, USA & Santander, Spain
Dr Muller-Botti is originally from Chile, where he completed his medical degree (2001) and specialty in anaesthetics training (2006). Sacha completed his Australian qualifications in anaesthetics in 2009 through the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) and has practised as a Staff Specialist with Hunter New England (HNE) Health at John Hunter Hospital ever since. For 5 years, Sacha held the position as a Supervisor of Training for anaesthetics in HNE Health through ANZCA.
Since 2008, he has been an instructor and faculty member for HNE Simulation Centre, giving him more that 10 years of experience in medical simulation, feedback and debriefing. He is currently the lead for Instructor Training and Development for HNE Simulation Centre. Since 2012, Sacha has been a faculty member for the Institute for Medical Simulation, teaching instructors for simulation in healthcare around the world in both English (through the Centre for Medical Simulation, Harvard, Boston) and Spanish (through Hospital Virtual Valdecilla, Santander, Spain). Dr Muller-Botti’s main area of expertise is in the field of simulation is debriefing, feedback and difficult conversations. He is currently working together with a group from the USA, Spain, Brazil and China in the scientific translation, linguistic and cultural validation of assessment tools and documents used in healthcare.
Rayan Nahas, Acting Surgical Team Leader Pharmacist, St George Hospital, Sydney, NSW
Rayan Nahas is currently acting as the Surgical Team Leader Pharmacist at St George Hospital in Sydney. Prior to this, Rayan worked at Royal North Shore Hospital where she was seconded as a full-time research pharmacist and completed two research projects with a geriatrician/clinical pharmacologist as the principal investigator. The first project involved Rayan implementing the intervention arm of a randomised controlled trial titled “Minimising the Function Burden of Medications in Older Inpatients: Implementation of the Drug Burden Index.’ The results from this pilot trial have been presented at numerous conferences including SHPA Medicines Management 2017, National Medicines Symposium and APSA-ASCEPT. As part of her second research secondment, Rayan was responsible for coordinating a service to review medications in patients with hyperpolypharmacy as part of a pre/post study titled “Implementation of a Multidisciplinary Multiple Medication Management Service (4MS) to Improve Quality Use of Medicines and Outcomes in Older Inpatients.” Rayan was a member of the SHPA NSW branch for 3 years and was also part of the SHPA MM2017 Scientific Program Committee. In 2016, Rayan was awarded the SHPA NSW Branch Early Career Pharmacist.
Daniel O’Brien, Clinical Business Analyst, Pharmacy Clinical Informatics, Alfred Health, Melbourne, Vic
Daniel works within both the Alfred Health Pharmacy Clinical Informatics and Information Development divisions. Alfred Health implemented electronic medication management with Cerner in October 2018. In his role, Daniel is a part of the senior group of informaticians who are integral to the design, implementation, optimisation and maintenance of the electronic medications management systems for Alfred Health. He is a member of the SHPA EMM Speciality Practice stream leadership committee. Daniel aims to leverage his broad clinical and informatics experience and organizational knowledge to ensure the solutions developed both enhance patient care and offer an optimal experience for end user clinicians.
Natalie Page, Product Stream Lead, Pharmacist Subject Matter Expert, Electronic Prescribing and Medication Administration, EMM Program, Digital Metro North, Brisbane, Qld
Natalie Page is a clinical pharmacist with extensive professional experience that spans appointments across multiple hospitals and jurisdictions in Australia in the areas of electronic medication management, medications safety, and pharmacy leadership and management.
Natalie has experience in the build, testing, implementation and evaluation of multiple EMM systems including DXC MedChart, Cerner Millennium, and Orion Health Medicines.
She has been awarded a Master of Philosophy for research into prescribing decision support in hospital EMM systems and is a Certified Health Informatician.
Cindy Patterson, Deputy Chief Pharmacist for Wagga Wagga Health Service, Murrumbidgee Local Health District, NSW
Cindy Patterson has been working in healthcare over the last 15 years in a diverse range of practice. Her roles span being a clinical ward pharmacist, an education pharmacist and a deputy chief pharmacist. She has also been a pharmacy business analyst for eMeds, and will become an Application Specialist – Team Lead eMeds, across four New South Wales Local Health Districts in late August this year.
Jan Phillips, Executive Director of the Centre for Leadership Excellence in Clinical Excellence Queensland, a Division of Queensland Health, Qld
Jan has previously held executive and general management positions in a number of large public sector organisations, including central public-sector management agencies and housing, local government, planning and public works departments.
She brings significant expertise in public service and healthcare improvement, including leadership and management development, workplace culture improvement, workforce redesign, strategic planning, quality improvement, innovation, human resource management and organisational change.
Jan has national and international experience as an invited speaker and facilitator and has published a range of articles on clinical leadership and healthcare culture improvement. Her qualifications are in social work and strategic leadership, and she is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Benita Suckling, Opioid Stewardship Pharmacist, Redcliffe Hospital, Brisbane, Qld; Quality Use of Medicines Pharmacist, Clinical Pharmacology Department, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Brisbane, Qld
Benita graduated with a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the University of Queensland, a Graduate Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Tasmania, and a Graduate Certificate in Pain Management at the University of Sydney. She is an Opioid Stewardship and Acute Pain Pharmacist at Redcliffe Hospital, where she has worked for the most part of her career. In her role as opioid stewardship pharmacist she was involved in the planning, development and implementation of the service, which has provided her with the experience to gain an Advancing Practice Stage 2 Credential and has also led to further work in opioid management as the Quality Use of Medicines Pharmacist at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital on a part-time basis. Benita is also a member of SHPA’s Pain Management Leadership Committee.
Kyra Sycamore, Specialist Mental Health Pharmacist, Canterbury District Health Board, Christchurch, NZ
Kyra qualified as a pharmacist in New Zealand and started her career in community pharmacy. After moving to the UK in 2003, she accidentally got a job in a mental health hospital and quickly realised that mental health is far more interesting than community pharmacy. Kyra specialised in mental health while she was in the UK, completing postgraduate qualifications at Aston University in Birmingham, becoming a fully credentialed member of the College of Mental Health Pharmacy (the CMHP), and then eventually joining the CMHP Council.
Kyra returned to New Zealand in 2014. She is now based at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Christchurch where she works with a variety of mental health teams, including Child & Adolescent mental health, Eating Disorders, Mothers & Babies mental health, and adult long-stay rehabilitation. Kyra is the Convenor of the NZHPA Mental Health SIG. She has a special interest in clozapine, and of course in Cytochrome P450 testing.
Jessica Toleman, Acting Executive Director, Women’s and Newborn Services, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Brisbane, Qld
Jessica graduated as a pharmacist from the University of Queensland and has completed a Master of Health Administration at Latrobe University in 2017 as part of the Australasian College of Health Service Management Health Management Internship Program.
Jessica has experience in community pharmacy, where she completed her pre-registration, and hospital pharmacy in both clinical and management positions. She has also worked extensively in a wide variety of project areas ranging from electronic medicines management and optimisation of statewide anticoagulant use to own source revenue and medical engagement projects.
Jessica is currently Acting Executive Director for Women’s and Newborn Services at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and continues to support the facility’s Choosing Wisely Program as clinical lead.
Associate Professor Jason Trubiano, Infectious Diseases Physician, Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship, Drug and Antibiotic Allergy Services, NHMRC Early Career Fellow (University of Melbourne), Vic
Dr Jason Trubiano is an Infectious Diseases Physician and Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship and Antibiotic Allergy at Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia. He also holds a position at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre as an immunocompromised host infectious diseases physician and Coordinator of Antibiotic Allergy Services. Currently an NHMRC PhD Scholar at the University of Melbourne examining the impact of antibiotic allergy testing on antimicrobial stewardship. In collaboration with Murdoch University and Vanderbilt Medical Centre he is also examining the utility of ex vivo T cell diagnostics in assigning drug causality in cases of antibiotic associated severe cutaneous adverse drug reactions, with an interest in the development of clinical allergy diagnostics.
Dr Kaitlyn Watson, Sessional Academic and Researcher, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Qld
Dr Kaitlyn Watson completed a PhD at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) investigating pharmacists’ roles in disasters. Dr Watson teaches into the School of Clinical Sciences at QUT both in the pharmacy discipline and in interprofessional health units. Kaitlyn is a registered pharmacist and maintains her clinical practice at Greenslopes Private Hospital.
Professor Ian Whyte, Director, Department of Clinical Toxicology & Pharmacology and Director of Prevocational Education & Training, Calvary Mater Newcastle, NSW
Professor Whyte is Director of the Department of Clinical Toxicology & Pharmacology and Director of Prevocational Education & Training at the Calvary Mater Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. He is a Conjoint Professor in the Discipline of Clinical Pharmacology, School of Medical Practice and Population Health, Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Newcastle, and is the Director of the Hunter Area Toxicology Service (HATS) for the Hunter and New England Local Health District (HNE LHD). Professor Whyte chairs the Quality Use of Medicines Committee and the Clinical Trials Subcommittee of the Research Ethics Committee for the HNE LHD and is Chair of the Regional Network of the New South Wales Therapeutic Assessment Group.
Professor Whyte has been an invited keynote speaker for multiple national and international toxicology and pharmacology societies. He has been an investigator on numerous intervention trials. He is an invited reviewer for many international journals and has published more than 170 papers in peer-reviewed journals along with many book chapters, reviews, editorials, letters and abstracts.
His current areas of clinical and research interest include psychopharmacology, serotonin toxicity/syndrome, deliberate self-poisoning, suicide prevention and the application of an evidenced-based approach to Clinical Toxicology.
Nathan Zipf, Advanced Pharmacist, Quality Use of Medicines, Gold Coast Health, Gold Coast, Qld
Nathan is an Advanced Pharmacist, Quality Use of Medicines at Gold Coast Health. He has worked in both public and private hospital settings and has broad experience in business process improvement through automation and development of electronic solutions. He is a Certified Health Informatician (CHIA) and has extensive knowledge of database schemas used by pharmacy which include the Integrated Electronic Medical Record (ieMR), iPharmacy dispensing system and the Enterprise Liaison Medication System (eLMS) used for generation of medication lists for patients. Nathan is passionate about promoting value-based healthcare through data analytics and development of novel clinical decision support tools which utilise large clinical data-sets.