We are really fortunate enough to have some fantastic keynote speakers joining us for our event, a little bit about them is below.

Kimberley Haines is a clinician-researcher and Physiotherapy Research Lead at Western Health, Melbourne, Victoria. Kimberley is also a clinical associate professor in the Department of Critical Care, School of Medicine, at The University of Melbourne, where she is currently undertaking her NHMRC Investigator Grant, to continue her post-doctoral research in ICU recovery. A/Prof Haines is an emerging national and international leader in the field of critical care survivorship, as well as in the use of co-design and qualitative methods in vulnerable cohorts.

Dr. Rebecca Jarden is a registered nurse with a strong clinical nursing background in intensive care, leading and supporting quality nursing care and driving translational nurse wellbeing research. Rebecca is Senior Nursing Research Fellow at Austin Health and Senior Lecturer at The University of Melbourne. Rebecca’s post-doctoral research continues a health workforce focus, exploring wellbeing during transition and beyond.

Professor John Fraser is Founder and Director of the Critical Care Research Group; Director of the Intensive Care Unit at St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital; Founder and Chief Medical Officer of De Motu Cordis Pty Ltd; and Immediate Past President of the Asia Pacific ELSO Chapter. John has five professorships across major Australian universities; has published over 650 peer-reviewed publications; and has received more than AUD 91 million in competitive grants. In 2018, John was awarded the Australian Society of Medical Research Clinical Research Award. He is the proud father of five great children: Ben, Dominic, Nicholas, Lucy, and Tommy.

Monday Research Day Speakers

Dr Joanne (Jo) Ritchie

MBChB FCICM

I am delighted by this opportunity to present at the New Zealand Regional ANZICS ASM on behalf of my colleagues at Organ Donation New Zealand (ODNZ) and the New Zealand Blood Service (NZBS).  After initially training as an Anaesthetist and then Intensive Care Specialist, I worked in the Intensive Care Unit at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland for 18 years. I developed an interest in organ donation as an important part of end of life care for patients dying in the ICU and became the ICU ODNZ Link doctor at Middlemore early in my career. I took on some locum work helping with the on call team at ODNZ, and over the past 6 years, I’ve taken a permanent role there and am now the Clinical Director for ODNZ based at the National Office of NZBS in Auckland.

I am excited by the opportunities that we have in New Zealand to collaborate with all of our ICU colleagues to deliver amazing end of life care, including offering the option of organ and tissue donation to all, providing excellent donor care, so paying the ultimate respect to those that choose to donate and achieving world-class recipient outcomes.

When not at work, I’m likely to be out walking in the wild with my family including 2 nutty dogs, gardening, cooking, or enjoying a really good book somewhere, preferably sunny.

Kirsten Finucane 

Kirsten’s career in congenital cardiac surgery started in 1992 with training at Greenlane Hospital under Alan Kerr followed by time at Birmingham Children’s Hospital UK with Bill Brawn.

Since 1996 Kirsten has been a consultant operating on children and adults with congenital heart disease in Auckland and has seen the adult programme increase from under 20 cases a year to 60-70 in recent years. At Greenlane the surgery on both children and adults was under one service and in 2003 when the time came for the service to move to the Auckland site although the adult and paediatric services separated they remained closely linked both geographically and with shared staff who therefore had a strong understanding of congenital issues. This planning has allowed the adult congenital service to flourish through the last two decades and become one of the strongest in this region of the world. New Zealand Fontan Conversion outcomes, published with the help of the Australasian Fontan registry, are one example of this.

Kirsten has treasured the legacy of the adult patients successfully repaired by Sir Brian Barrett-Boyes, and by Alan Kerr even though many of the redo operations are complicated, involve long hours of dissection and much planning. The resilience of these adult patients has inspired Kirsten and the operating room team to rise to the challenge of giving them another chance and improving their quality of life.

Areas of particular interest have included valve repairs or homograft aortic valve insertion, arrhythmia surgery, adult congenital transplantation and adult Fontan patients requiring valve or pacemaker surgery.

Dr Tom Hills is a Clinical Immunologist and Infectious Diseases Physician at Te Toka Tumai Auckland Hospital and the Infectious Diseases Programme Lead at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand. His main areas of interest are the management of infections in critically ill patients and in people with compromised immunity. His research focuses on the design of adaptive platform trials to efficiently identify effective treatments for patients with severe infections.