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People


PEOPLE

Staff

Head of Department Dr Mark Priestley

Department Executive

  • Dr Robyn Alleyn
  • Dr Clare Farrell
  • Dr Richard Halliwell
  • Dr John Harrison
  • Dr Ross Keen
  • Dr Mark Lovell
  • Dr Jessie Ly
  • Dr Mark Priestley
  • Dr Kanan Shah
  • Dr Darin Westaway
  • Dr Steve Williams
  • Dr Susan Voss

Clinical Coordinator Dr Susan Voss

Supervisors of Training

  • Dr Giles Miller
  • Dr Kate Chatten
  • Dr Ann Marie McCallum

AIMS and Quality Assurance Dr Mark Lovell

Primary exam teaching

  • Dr Jessie Ly
  • Dr Steve Williams
  • and colleagues

Research Coordinator Ms Louise Cope

Administrative Staff

  • Ms Kris Hamilton
  • Mrs Ranita Kissun
  • Ms Jennifer Murray

Consultants

Provisional Fellows

Registrars

Nurse Unit Managers

  • Ms Julie Hook (Anaesthesia)
  • Mr Trevor Court (Recovery)

Perfusionists

  • Mr Ray Miraziz
  • Ms Grace Agbulos
  • Ms Rona Steel
  • Ms Monique Brouwer
  • Ms Mahak Rani

31 Jan 2024


PEOPLE

Dr Mark Priestley

At Westmead Hospital we're very fortunate to have a very talented and enthusiastic group of anaesthetists and anaesthesia trainees on staff. I admire them enormously because:

  • They prioritise the highest quality and safety in clinical care
  • They are compassionate clinicians, recognising the vulnerability, hopes and fears of all patients in a complex environment
  • They have a real passion for teaching (each other and others)
  • They have the inquiring minds essential for research and advancing the knowledge of our specialty
  • They support and care for each other
  • They are great team players and engage with other staff all over the hospital to get better health outcomes
  • They value their role as "interdepartmental glue" and are true advocates for the health of all patients in western Sydney
  • They work efficiently and are mindful of our limited resources in public health

My job is to provide the best resources possible to allow them to do all of this work. I enjoy it immensely and I feel privileged to work here as head of their department.

09 Jan 2018


PEOPLE

Assoc Prof Stefan Dieleman

Stefan works as a Staff Specialist in the Department of Anaesthesia at Westmead Hospital. He is a Clinical Associate Professor at The University of Sydney.

Stefan's main research interest is in the inter-patient variability of the perioperative inflammatory response to major surgery. When considering the large variability in the clinical phenotype of this response that is often observed, it is not surprising that the effects of therapies to modify the inflammatory response do largely vary between patients as well. When this phenotype variability is not taken into account while testing perioperative interventions in (large) therapeutic trials, this may lead to decreased effectiveness of these interventions. Stefan's research focusses on improving methods to predict the phenotype of the inflammatory response to major surgery in individual patients. This should eventually enable the use of more targeted prophylactic and/or therapeutic interventions to prevent adverse outcomes.

Stefan works as a Staff Specialist and is the Head of Research in the Department of Anaesthesia at Westmead Hospital. He is a full-time Associate Professor at Western Sydney University and a Clinical Associate Professor at The University of Sydney.

Stefan's main research interests include:

Inter-patient variability of the perioperative inflammatory response

The clinical phenotype of the perioperative inflammatory response is largely variable. When considering this variability, it is not surprising that the effects of therapies to modify the inflammatory response do significantly differ between patients as well. When this variability is not taken into account while testing perioperative interventions in (large) therapeutic trials, this may lead to decreased effectiveness of these interventions. Stefan's research focusses on improving methods to predict the phenotype of the inflammatory response to major surgery in individual patients. This should eventually enable the use of more targeted prophylactic and/or therapeutic interventions to prevent adverse outcomes.

Large-scale, registry-based perioperative outcomes research

Registry-based trials and cohort studies can be low-cost, can facilitate rapid consecutive enrolment of large numbers of patients. By harnessing variations in 'standard' clinical practice in the study design, registry-based trials will have enhanced generalizability of findings. In particular in the context of perioperative medicine, which traditionally has a relatively large variation in practice (and therefore in what is considered 'routine practice'), registry-based clinical trials are be ideally suited.

An overview of Stefan's publications is available online.

21 Mar 2021


PEOPLE

Dr Claire Stewart

Dr Claire Stewart is a staff specialist anaesthetist at Westmead Hospital in Sydney. She is a member of the cardiothoracic group, having qualifications in transoesophageal echocardiography and an interest in haematology in cardiac surgery.

She is currently the Chair of ANZCA's Gender Equity Subcommittee after running the inaugural ANZCA Gender Equity Survey. She hopes to use her time as Chair to drive policies that improve anaesthesia workplaces for everyone.

Claire also pursues this goal as the Wellbeing Lead for the Westmead Dept of Anaesthesia. To this role, she brings a love of baking and attempting (mostly hilariously failing) to recreate the Great British Bake Off in her own home. She loves long distance running to help burn the resulting calories. When not dedicating her time to these pursuits, Claire also keeps fit while chasing her 2 children around and making cardboard sculptures for them to play in.

05 May 2023


PEOPLE

Dr Jeremy Field

Cardiac anaesthetist and medical perfusionist.

Strong-to-overwhelming interest in getting computers to make our and our patients' lives better. Constructed a data extraction pipeline for easier interrogation of our electronic anaesthesia record. Interested in the myriad ways information systems can fail, the potential clinical consequences of these failures, and their mitigation and prevention.

In my spare time, I like programming computers, playing piano and doing some exercise. Grew up in python, living in clojure.

25 Mar 2021


PEOPLE

Dr Alan Yam

Alan is a specialist anaesthetist in the Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at Westmead Hospital. He is a clinical lecturer at the University of Sydney and one of the Departmental ANZCA Scholar Role Tutors. He was obstetric anaesthesia fellow at Westmead. Previously, Alan worked for one year as a pre-doctoral research fellow at National Cancer Institute in the US.

Interests include acute pain management in trauma patients, regional anaesthesia for chest trauma, and obstetric anaesthesia. Current projects include observational studies in acute pain management in patient with chest injuries, and impact of frailty on outcome in patients with rib fractures.

In my spare time, I like taking photographs, making sourdough and fly fishing (when I can go to Tasmania).

21 Mar 2021


PEOPLE

Dr Farheen Ali

  • Hospitalist/Senior Career Medical Officer
  • Clinical Lead for Pre-Admission Clinic
  • High Risk Perioperative Medicine Service Clinic Coordinator

Interests

Optimisation, multidisciplinary collaboration, communication and care in the perioperative period.

Current research

  • Westmead Hospital Perioperative Medicine Service — a Shared Decision-Making Model of Care: Retrospective Review of Outcomes for High Risk Surgical Patients between 2017 and 2019, Principal Investigator
  • TEXTPOPS (TEXT support for Peri-Operative Prevention of Smoking), a collaboration between the Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine and Cardiology, Co-Investigator
  • ROCKET study, Co-investigator for Westmead Hospital
  • QUARK trial, Co-Investigator for Westmead Hospital
  • ITACS trial, Co-investigator for Westmead Hospital

01 Mar 2020


PEOPLE

Dr Brenton Sanderson

Brenton is a specialist anaesthetist and previous research fellow at the Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at Westmead Hospital and Clinical associate lecturer at the University of Sydney.

Brenton is currently completing his PhD examining the role of electronic decision support for massive transfusion under the supervision of Prof Enrico Coiera at the Centre for Health Informatics, Macquarie University. This will culminate in a study evaluating a computerised decision support system in a simulated bleeding scenario compared to current practice.

Brenton's main research interest is the application of IT systems to improve quality of care and support evidence-based practice.

An overview of Brenton's publications is available online

24 Feb 2020