Monash Health

We were thrilled to welcome the Rotary Club of Emerald and District at the Monash Children’s Hospital last week, who donated an incredible $41,000 for the Monash Children’s Cancer Centre 💙 The funds were raised at the 2024 Kids Fun Run with Puffing Billy – a very special annual event hosted by the Rotary Club in support of our young patients. We had the pleasure of taking our wonderful supporters on a tour of the Children’s Cancer Research Labs with our dedicated team of clinicians and researchers, to see the innovation and collaboration underway with the Hudson Institute of Medical Research. On behalf of Monash Health and our patients and families, we extend our gratitude to the Rotary Club of Emerald & District and everyone involved in fundraising for this generous gift to support children's cancer research.

Meet 1-year-old Freddie 💛 Freddie was born at only 26 weeks gestation, weighing a tiny 1.03 kg. He is now unstoppable. His mum Victoria was admitted to hospital after unexpected bleeding caused by placenta previa, a complication where the placenta covers the cervix. ‘I was not expecting to be in labour that day, but I was quickly rushed to hospital and he was on his way!’ said mum Victoria. An emergency delivery was performed, but with significant bleeding, Victoria required a blood transfusion to manage her haemorrhage, after losing almost 5 litres of blood. Freddie would then spend 97 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Monash Children’s Hospital, with his big brother Jack and sister Ruby eagerly awaiting his arrival home. As an extremely pre-term infant, Freddie was particularly vulnerable in his first few months, requiring life-saving support with breathing and feeding, and making him susceptible to inflammation and infections. On Freddie’s admission to NICU, mum Victoria and dad Thomas were offered to be a part of the ‘Anakinra Pilot Trial’, a trial aimed at decreasing inflammation experienced by many babies who are born extremely pre-term and improving their outcomes. ‘We believe in advancing medicine and jumped at the opportunity to support research for Freddie and other babies’ future health,' said Victoria. Freddie's first 20 months of life have not been without their challenges, spending time in both the NICU and Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), but mum Victoria says his development has been amazing and he is meeting all his milestones with his dedicated care teams. ⭐ To support families and young patients like Freddie, join us for the Monash Children’s Hospital Shine Gala on Friday 16 May ⭐      To secure your ticket today, please visit: https://lnkd.in/gf6CgBkG

🎉 Congratulations to Monash Health Endocrinologist Professor Helena Teede AM on being appointed President of the International Society of Endocrinology - ISE starting January 2025! 🌟 Professor Teede, also the Director of the Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation (MCHRI), will lead ISE with a vision to expand its impact through enhanced collaboration and integration across endocrine organisations and regions. ISE is dedicated to optimising life-long health for individuals with endocrine and metabolic disorders worldwide, playing a pivotal role in delivering education and upskilling health professionals globally. 🌏💪 ISE collaborates with over 80 national and regional societies, reaching more than 50,000 health professionals globally. It represents a diverse community of clinicians, researchers, academics, nurses, dieticians, and other allied health professionals active in the field of endocrinology. Professor Teede’s leadership is expected to further solidify Australian Endocrinology’s position as a world leader in supporting endocrine practice and research.

Today is #WorldHealthDay! We’re highlighting the World Health Organization's theme ‘Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures’, which urges governments and the health community to ramp up efforts to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths and to prioritise women’s longer-term health and wellbeing. Associate Professor Kirsten Palmer from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Clinical Sciences at Monash Health is an obstetrician and maternal fetal medicine specialist. Here’s what she had to say on the topic. “Pregnant women have long been excluded from participating in clinical trials. This has led to a lack of evidence to ensure they receive the best care. There has also been a global lack of investment in the development of new medications for use in pregnancy, which has resulted in the stagnation of advances to improve outcomes for women impacted by hypertension in pregnancy and preterm birth, which are major causes of maternal and perinatal death and disability, along with many other conditions. At Monash, we’re addressing this inequity by creating a pregnancy clinical trials team to achieve ‘healthy beginnings and hopeful futures’. “This team is currently supporting over 16 clinical trials at all stages of pregnancy. Through our collaborations with Monash Health and the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, we have developed a translational pipeline of therapeutics, which includes the world's first trial of melatonin for fetal neuroprotection in the setting of fetal growth restriction, early stage research progressing sulforaphane for preeclampsia and creatine for fetal protection from birth asphyxia. All these treatments are developed with a global focus to ensure our outcomes are accessible to women around the world, being all heat stable, orally available and cheap. “Women who experience the poorest outcomes in pregnancy are often those who lack access to care. We have been exploring approaches to improve women's access to high-quality care and how digital technologies can support this. We have already been able to show that telehealth-integrated care can support access to care without compromising care outcomes. “Models of care integrating digital health will likely be crucial in supporting women following birth to support hopeful futures through improved access to perinatal mental health support, as well as education and care to minimise the long-term poorer health outcomes women can have after pregnancies complicated by hypertension, diabetes, or preterm birth.” Learn more about World Health Day 2025 Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures' campaign: https://lnkd.in/d8nVsj82

𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗼𝗿 𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗼𝗿? We want to hear your perspectives on the complex challenges faced by childhood cancer survivors and their families – from physical health and development issues through to the educational, social and financial impacts that occur in the long term. We’re hosting an in-person roundtable event to gather these perspectives, enabling us to develop an action plan that holistically supports research and interventions benefiting childhood cancer survivors and their families. 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘀: 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻: 5pm – 7pm, Wednesday 21 May 2025 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: Tennis Australia HQ, Melbourne Park, Olympic Boulevard, Melbourne, Australia 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: https://lnkd.in/guHScQPS #ChildrensCancerCoLab #CollaborativeResearch #ChildhoodCancer #CCCoLab #Survivorship #CancerSurvivor Children's Cancer Foundation (Australia) Victorian Government Hudson Institute of Medical Research Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) Monash Health The Royal Children's Hospital University of Melbourne Monash University Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) Victorian Integrated Cancer Services (VICS) Victorian Paediatric Integrated Cancer Service (PICS) Mary McGowan OAM Hon. Jaala Pulford Danny Pearson Naomi Nugraweni

Monash Health is recruiting participants for a trial to design a new model of care for a memory clinic for people with Down syndrome 🧠✨ Geriatrician Dr Madeleine Healy, who is leading the “Improving Dementia Diagnosis in Down Syndrome” project, said 95% of people with Down syndrome develop Alzheimer’s Disease, with an average age of diagnosis of 54 years. At present, there are no specialised memory services in Australia for people with Down syndrome or intellectual disability generally.  ‘Without access to specialised memory services people with Down syndrome experience delays in diagnosis and lose the opportunity for early intervention and support. ‘Further, Australians with Down syndrome do not currently have equal access to clinical trials in Alzheimer’s disease, and this may lead to delays in accessing disease-modifying treatment in the future. ‘At Monash Health, we aim to lead the way in enhancing services for individuals with Down syndrome across Australia. There is an urgent need for improved services, and we believe that by upskilling general health services, we can make significant strides. ‘However, we also recognise the need for statewide memory services to provide the necessary expertise and support for people with Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities,’ she said. Dr Healy, the Medical Lead for Cognitive Dementia and Memory Service under the Aged and Rehabilitation Division, said she is recruiting for the co-design component of the project and is looking for people with Down syndrome, their families, and carers to participate in 30-minute face-to-face or online interviews around designing a specialised memory service. From July 2025, we'll be piloting a memory service at Kingston Centre. This project is supported by Monash University, Down Syndrome Victoria, Down Syndrome Australia, and the Centre for Developmental Disability Health. For more information about the trial, please visit: https://lnkd.in/gu8CEMvX

Thanks to the generosity of a kidney transplant recipient and donor couple, future leaders in Nephrology at Monash Health will have extra support to pursue an academic career. ‘The Bogetic Nephrology Research Fellowship’ has been created thanks to Dragan Bogetic, a recent living donor kidney transplant recipient, and his wife and kidney donor Dr Zorica Bogetic, who have a close history with care at Monash Health and have invested so generously in its future. Zorica trained and worked as a neonatologist in Serbia before migrating to Australia and working at Prince Henry's Hospital and Monash Health in the Department of Medicine in the 1980s and 90s. Years later, the couple would experience their own journeys as patients at Monash Health undergoing a living donor transplant and making a heartfelt commitment to give back for future research into kidney health. ‘This incredibly generous donation has given us an opportunity to promote the academic and research careers of the junior nephrologists in our department who we see as having great potential as future leaders locally, nationally and internationally,’ said Professor John Kanellis, Director of Nephrology. We are proud to announce that Dr Jennifer Yo is the inaugural recipient of the fellowship award for her research proposal, ‘Early kidney damage after preeclampsia: a population-based cohort study’ 🏆 For this research, Jennifer will be collaborating with experts in Sweden to look at the data from nearly 200,000 pregnancies and examine the impact of pre-eclampsia on longer-term renal function and on cardiovascular outcomes. Through this work, Jennifer will help us better understand how to improve the management of women during and after pregnancy, particularly when preeclampsia has a high likelihood of adversely affecting their longer-term kidney and cardiovascular health. On behalf of Monash Health and the Nephrology Department, thank you, Dragan and Zorica, for your generous gift, which will have such a positive impact on the next generation of nephrology researchers and the care we provide 💙

Congratulations to Monash Health and School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health clinician-scientist Dr Gwo-Yaw Ho for being awarded the 2025 Michael Friedlander AM Award by the Australia New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group (ANZGOG) 🏆 Dr Ho has made significant strides in ovarian cancer research, particularly in precision immunotherapy and clinical trials. His innovative work, including the development of Monash Live Bio-banking (MoLBi) research platform, is truly inspiring 🌟 'I am truly honoured to receive this award,' said Dr Ho. 'I wish to acknowledge everyone—past and present—including Professor Clare Scott, Chair of ANZGOG, my colleagues at Monash Health and Monash University, my family, and all the women who have contributed to and supported my research journey. ‘Ultimately, my goal is to improve outcomes for women diagnosed with these devastating diseases.’ To read more about Dr Ho’s achievement, please visit: https://lnkd.in/gdR3i3gU

Dr Sukanya Roy is generously supporting the next generation of haematologists after retiring from an incredible twenty-two years of service at Monash Health. ‘Sukanya is a widely respected specialist who made significant contributions to the craft of haematopathology, the study of blood diseases and disorders, and to registrar training during her time at Monash Health,’ said Professor Jake Shortt, Clinical Director of Haematology. When she made the decision to retire, she was looking for a meaningful way to have a lasting impact on future haematologists and a career that had meant so much to her. Through a generous donation by Sukanya, the annual ‘Sukanya Roy Prize’ was established, to bring her vision to life and support the careers of future specialists following in her path. The prize is used to help fund the professional development of a Monash Health Haematology Trainee each year, who has contributed significantly to the laboratory’s research, quality improvement initiatives and education 🔬 We are pleased to congratulate Dr Trung Ngo, the deserving recipient of the prize for 2025! 🏆 Trung has been an invaluable member of the registrar team that is exploring a new test for blood cancers under the supervision of Dr Paul Yeh, Haematologist and Clinical Scientist. This research was not only published in the journal ‘Pathology’ with Trung as the first author, but also received NATA accreditation – making it the first RNA fusion panel of its kind for testing blood cancers in Australia. ‘I will always remember and value Sukanya’s teaching, mentorship and passion during my training at Monash Health,’ said Dr Trung Ngo. ‘She cared for us as junior doctors, provided excellent pearls of wisdom and helped to mould our future careers – I am so thankful for her generosity and commitment in establishing this prize.’ Trung will be embarking on a haematology fellowship at the prestigious, University College London Hospitals (UCLH) from July 2025. Congratulations, Trung! And on behalf of Monash Health, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to Sukanya for her incredible commitment and the lasting legacy she leaves in her retirement.

Few people can say they’ve completed two graduate programs at the same health service - but Keisha Perera is well on her way! The new graduate occupational therapist first trained as a nurse with Monash Health’s Nursing and Midwifery Graduate Program and was over the moon to land back at the health service in its Allied Health Graduate Program. ‘As soon as I started my course in Occupational Therapy I knew I wanted to come back and work at Monash Health,’ she said. ‘I like that I get to take my patients’ minds off the medical side of things, and work on their personal goals and what they want to achieve while making them feel involved in the process.’ Keisha is among over 120 Allied Health graduates who have obtained a placement on the 2025 Allied Health Graduate Program.   Find out about her first rotation at the Victorian Heart Hospital here: https://lnkd.in/gbmbnqZh