Research Week 2022 is now back in its usual time slot. This year too, this will primarily be a ‘virtual’ event with virtual presentations, posters and guest speakers, presenting the work conducted in 2022.

The feature department this year is Emergency Services, presenting a webinar on Tuesday 11 October at 10 am. Click here to join.

Research Week 2022 celebrates our inspired researchers. Click here for more details and the complete program.

Associate Professor Joe Rotella Joe will present on ‘Hyperemesis ad Nauseum: Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome (CHS)’. CHS is a condition that affects some, but not all individuals with a history of heavy cannabis use. His presentation will be paired with the findings of a recently published case series of CHS presentations from Northern Health, the largest case series published in the world to date.

“We looked at 142 adult presentations of CHS over six years (the largest prior was 98 presentations in the USA),” said Joe.

“We also examined demographics, clinical features, investigation results (a first for case series looking at CHS) and management.”

Dr Rifly Rafiudeen has worked at Northern Health for the last five years, completing a combined PhD and Interventional Cardiology Fellowship, under the mentorship of Professor Bill van Gaal and Professor Peter Barlis. Rifly’s research is focussed on Type 2 Myocardial Infarction (T2MI), and in particular, T2MI occurring after major non-cardiac surgery.

Rifly will present his findings from a prospective, double-blind, placebo controlled, randomised controlled trial. The trial used ivabradine started pre-operatively to reduce peri-operative MI and improve morbidity/mortality, in elderly patients undergoing surgery for acute fracture. The trial ran over three years, and recruited 209 patients.

“Ivabradine is a relatively new first-in-class cardiac medication that selectively reduces heart rate without affecting blood pressure,” said Rifly.

“It was an ideal choice for our study question, where we were trying to prevent tachycardia without the hypotension that beta blockers can cause.”

Dr David Crosbie, is an Intensivist at Northern Hospital Epping since 2012, and a Visiting Intensivist at The Austin Hospital. David will present on ‘Non-beneficial resuscitation of patients who have an in hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA).’

‘Non-beneficial resuscitation’, is a term they coined to describe resuscitation attempted on someone, who the doctors believe will clearly not benefit from resuscitation-and can actually end up being harmed.

His presentation draws on nine years of data, which built on an existing data base that David expanded on and made more detailed and readily accessible.

‘I got interested in Code Blues in particular, and thought we would look at them from two aspects. Firstly, why there are so many Code Blues, and how many of them are actually cardiac arrests and secondly, how appropriate resuscitation was in such instances.”

“I found that in our initial work that only about one in ten are actually cardiac arrests and what led to this paper was looking at the nine years of data in detail and seeing their outcomes and how they went.”

“Cardiac Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) certainly saves lives if you are an outpatient or out in the community; for example if you are having a cardiac arrest out in the football field,” says David.

“When you are in the hospital and really sick, we have a strong system to rescue and protect you. If that system does not work, it is only then a Code Blue is called,” he adds.

Dr Andrew Casamento an Intensive Care Consultant at Northern Hospital Epping, along with Austin and Warringal Private Hospitals, will be presenting on ‘Fentanyl vs. Morphine for Analgosedation in Mechanically Ventilated ICU patients’.

Andrew will present findings from the cluster-randomised, cluster-crossover trial.  He will also present some post-hoc analysis of this trial and details of a current trial underway of Ketamine as an adjunct therapy for analgesia in these patients.

As Faye Zaibak, Director, Research Operations, has pointed out, our research “improves the overall standard of medical care through the uptake of evidence into practice.”

The webinar on Tuesday 11 October showcasing our Emergency Services is a case in point and one to look forward to.

The complete Research Week event schedule will can be found here.