2015: CCS Local eNews blog no longer being issued

Image: News of the World

As of January 2015, we are no longer running the Monday blog for Central Clinical School (CCS) local news and what's on notifications. We continue to run the CCS Friday blog, which features research highlights and a condensed version of what's on for the week.
Enquiries to:
Julia Veitch
Communications Manager, Central Clinical School
ph +61 3 990 30026
Julia.Veitch@monash.edu
ccs.intranet@monash.edu

Welcome to new NTRI staff

The National Trauma Research Institute NTRI has new staff members:

• Cecily Schwab - a clinical psychologist with a significant business background.  Cec started in December, so many would have met her already, but she is replacing Kate Scott on the NTRI Forums and also helping out with some of the CETBIR and VNAC work.
• Jarrod Donovan - an Alfred nurse who has ICU experience and will be working with the P.A.R.T.Y. team from today, assisting Janet McLeod in managing the the operations of the various parts of the program.
• Crystal Seah and Natalie Lott - both will be working with Ornella Clavisi/Marije Bosch as casual data collectors working on the NET Program.

NTRI also has new Honorary Researchers working on the Enhanced Crash Investigation Study (ECIS): Emily Robertson and Karen Vlok.

Posted 6 Jan 2015 by Robyn Goodwill email robyn.goodwill@monash.edu

Photo of the week: Visualisation as you've never seen it before!

Professor Paul Bonnington demonstrating Monash's CAVE2(TM) facility, Monash's Immersive Visualisation Platform at the Clayton campus. CAVE stands for CAVE Assisted Virtual Environment. CAVE2 is a trademark of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. The backdrop image is of neural pathways in 3D. See more:

• About the facility: http://monash.edu/mivp
• CAVE2(TM) photo gallery (Imagery courtesy of UIC EVL, CALIT2 UCSD, Australian Synchrotron, KAUST, and Monash University)
• CAVE2 video (2:26 mins)
• More CCS photo galleries on Google plus
• CCS photo gallery index on the CCS Intranet

Season's Greetings from Head of School

Steve rising to the challenge of sounding
convincing in "Explain my graph" at the
2014 CCS postgraduate symposium...

I would like to thank all academic, professional, teaching, administrative and support staff for their hard work in 2014. Although we face difficult times from a funding perspective, the School continues to flourish and grow through the efforts of its dedicated staff.

I would also like to thank our dedicated and enthusiastic postgraduate and Honours students for their commitment to their research projects and participation in wider academic life. 22 of our PhD students were awarded their degrees during 2014, an outstanding effort.

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and safe and peaceful New Year and look forward to further enhancing our excellence in research, teaching and patient care in 2015.

Steve Jane, Head of Central Clinical School

Editorial for final 2014 CCS Blog news

Central Clinical School web page visits - weekly rate has doubled over 2014 with a total of 1.5M views

(Figures exclude Monash visitors). CCSMonash Google+ averaging around 1000 views/day.

This is the final edition of the CCS local enews for 2014. Collectively, the school has had a phenomenal output and profile and it's a bit like riding rapids to represent you all to the wider world! Your work has had literally millions of views over the year (no exaggeration, see graph above).
Your feedback on our news services would be very much appreciated. Please take our survey (only 8 questions).

Have a happy and safe Christmas and New Year break. Enews will resume in February 2015.

Regards, the 2014 team:
Julia Veitch, Vithya Premkumar and Dussy Kuttner

HDR seminars and CCS events

All event notices are maintained on the CCS Events calendars (including local events such as professional development and trade fairs and HDR calendars). For a consolidated view, details of events and to see all events and deadlines, see Announcements.  Various Departments have their own calendars: See CCS seminar index: www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/events/seminars.html

What's on for this week - mostly Christmas things

Tue Dec 16	11:30 1:00 PM	►	ACBD/Medicine seminar: Dr Hong Bin Liu Confirmation of PhD candidature: Ms Britt Christensen
Wed Dec 17	12:00 noon 12:30 PM	►	CCS Middle Managers Christmas lunch MAPrc Christmas lunch: contact MAPrc@monash.edu
Thu Dec 18	10:30 AM 7:00 PM	►	Russell Evan's farewell morning tea - all welcome ACBD Christmas party: contact roisin.briscoe@monash.edu
Fri Dec 19	12:30 PM	►	Immunology Kris Kringle and pot luck lunch: contact Nina.McLean@monash.edu

Forthcoming events

Mon Dec 22	1:00 PM	►	MAPrc Kris Kringle
Tues Dec 23		►	Last working day before University shutdown. First working day back in 2015 is Monday 5 Jan.

Congratulations to prize winners Chris Brooks and Laura Blair-West

Mrs Candice Rosengarten awarding
the prize plate to Chris Brooks

Congratulations to CCS students and graduates for recent wins.

Chris Brooks (Department of Surgery) won the D.S. Rosengarten Surgical Trainee Research Prize for his presentation, "Smoking increases postoperative respiratory complications and unplanned return to Theate in vascular surgical patients". Read more

Laura Blair-West (MAPrc) is a BMedSc(Hons) student investigating how social behaviour is affected with direct current stimulation. She won best poster presentation at the Australian Cognitive Science conference (seen here presenting her poster at the September 2014 AMREP EMCR conference, which she also won). Read more.

Congratulations to Amber Moore and Casey Lo, on their postgraduate degree awards!

Congratulations to Ms Amber Moore, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on 2 December 2014. Her thesis was titled "Philosophical and professional issues in Chinese medicine". Amber was enrolled in the Department of Medicine, and supervised by Professor Paul Komesaroff and Dr Kylie O'Brien. Well done Amber!

Congratulations to Mr Casey Lo, who has been awarded the degree of Master of Surgery. Casey Lo is a Thoracics Fellow at St Vincent's Private Hospital and completed his degree under the supervision of Drs Silvana Marasco and Deidre Murphy.  Read more

Recent publications with EMCR authors

The EMCR Times no.14 included recent publications with EMCR authors, which if you didn't see there, you can see below. Congratulations to all our hard working graduate students and postdocs.

EMCR Times: No. 14 now out

Cartoon: Cathy Wilcox

The EMCRTimes No.14 is now out, with highlights, farewells, recent publications, useful links, thankyou's, photos, cartoons and more.

The committee has had a very active and successful year, including the establishment of a seed grant program and a very well attended conference. They are seeking nominations for next year's committee.

See more:

•  www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/ecr/
•  CCS student profiles
• AMREP EMCR Facebook
• EMCR Google plus page

Participants sought: Investigating the health benefits of dietary fibre

Leek and prawn risotto, on the menu

Healthy volunteers are required for a study investigating the optimal increase in dietary fibre to improve bowel movement and gut bacteria. This study involves volunteers consuming nutritionally balanced diets that vary only in their dietary fibre content, over an entire period of 12 weeks. All cooked food will be supplied. Participants will be asked to purchase the fresh food component of the diet. All the diets have been designed and prepared by a fully qualified and experienced professional chef.

See more: www.med.monash.edu/cecs/gastro/clin-trials/ct-veitch.html

Farewell to our retiring Technical Services Manager, Russell Evans

CCS's Technical Services Manager, Mr Russell Evans, is retiring (but not shy). He has worked many years for Central Clinical School and in its previous incarnation, Central and Eastern Clinical School.

Thanks Russell for all your dedicated service, problem solving and schlepping over the years!

Everyone is invited to Russell's farewell morning tea on Thursday 18 Dec, Tea room, Level 6, Alfred Centre. Enquiries to Catherine Wong, catherine.wong@monash.edu or x30640

Welcome to our new staff

Welcome to our new staff!

• Dr Shoshana Sztal-Mazer, Teaching Associate for UMED. Shoshana is an endocrinologist at the Alfred.
• Dr Anna Korin, Teaching Associate for UMED. Anna is a supervisor of Intern Training at the Alfred.
• Miss Angela Weber, Professional staff, Department of Surgery
• Mr Peter Frost, Professional staff, Peninsula Clinical School
• Ms Ellen Mathieson, Technical Assistant, BAFF lab, Department of Immunology
• Dr Jodie Palmer, Department of Gastroenterology
• Mrs Cheryl Berndt, Technical Assistant, ACBD
• Ms Beatriz De Garcillan, Research Fellow, BAFF lab, Department of Immunology
• Dr Alison Thorburn, Teaching Associate for Department of Immunology
• Dr Janette Allison, Teaching Associate for Department of Immunology
• Dr Sandra Walker, Research Fellow, Melbourne Sexual Health Clinic

Survey of staff's fitness and wellbeing by Faculty: Responses due 16 Jan 2015

Two years ago Monash offered staff a health check and, from this, a report was developed on the health and wellbeing of our staff. It identified a number of issues that may be addressed by an increase in physical and mental health activity.

Therefore, in 2015, we would like to promote participation in the University’s health and wellbeing program.  Items on offer will include fitness programs like yoga and pilates, general health information sessions, nutrition based programs and mindfulness/resilience programs to name a few.

To assist us in tailoring the wellbeing program for our faculty, your feedback to the 2014 Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences Staff Health and Wellbeing Survey would be extremely valuable. The survey closes on 16 January, 2015.

Detailed information on the SWAP programs available go to http://www.monash.edu/ohs/wellbeing/swap.html.

Finalised programs to be offered to the faculty will be available early in 2015.

Photo of the week: FODMAP food and raising money for brain cancer research

The Department of Gastroenterology has an extensive testing program to ascertain FODMAP levels of various foods. The foodstuffs which have a long shelf life, e.g. spices, condiments, powders etc, once tested are now being given away and a gold coin donation is invited to raise money for the "Cure Brain Cancer Foundation". One of their colleagues, a young and beautiful woman called Amanda Banfield, died earlier this year of an aggressive brain tumour, so this is in memory of her. Without research, we will never know the causes, hence treatment, of brain cancers.
The food can be taken from Level 6, Alfred Centre. Enquiries to:  Ms Phip Settle x30526

Events: HDR seminars, public events, general notices

All event notices are maintained on the CCS Events calendars (including local events such as professional development and trade fairs and HDR calendars). For a consolidated view, details of events and to see all events and deadlines, see Announcements.  Various Departments have their own calendars: See CCS seminar index: www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/events/seminars.html

What's on for this week

Tue Dec 9 11:00 AM ► Honours final oral review seminar: Mr Adam Rickard 11:20 AM ► PhD Mid-candidature review - Ms Amani Alrehaili Thur Dec 11 4:00 PM ► Central Clinical School Christmas Party RSVP: catherine.wong@monash.edu cost $10 per person Fri Dec 12 2:00 PM ► Head of School presentation: Prof Stephen Jane

Forthcoming events

Tue Dec 16

1:00 PM

►

Confirmation of PhD candidature - Ms Britt Christensen

Congratulations to our newly awarded PhD students, Kathryn Hackman and Jay Jha!

Kathryn Hackman. See more

Jay Jha. See more

Congratulations to our PhD students Kathryn Hackman (AIRmed/Medicine) and Jay Jha (BakerIDI) for the award of their PhD degrees (respectively on lung transplant in diabetic patients, and mechanisms of diabetes). Well done on completing! They are our 19th and 20th PhD students to complete this year.

"Top 5 under 40" competition: Are you a young scientist with a passion for communicating your research? Apply by 16 Jan 2015

To mark 40 years of The Science Show, Top 5 under 40 is an exciting initiative jointly offered by University of New South Wales and ABC Radio National to discover Australia’s new generation of science thinkers – and give them a voice.

We’re looking for outstanding early-career researchers aged under 40 working in Australian universities and research organisations across the fields of science, medical research, technology, engineering and maths. A desire and flair for communicating your work is a must. Applications due in by 16 Jan 2015.

Research highlights: Rib healing; HIV & Hep C, AIRmed grants

Research highlights this week:

• Analysis of bone healing in flail chest injury: do we need to fix both fractures per rib?

• Clinical presentation of risk factors of hepatitis C virus among HIV-infected patients in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau

• Professor Bruce Thompson on NHMRC, ARC and Victorian Government grants for asthma and respiratory research

 

Media mentions

02/12/2014 Dr Bernadette Fitzgibbon, MAPrc, along with Dr Melita Giummarra, School of Psychological Sciences, commented on new research from Yale University that suggests that just because you're friendly, it doesn't mean you're adept at understanding how other people are feeling.
Nine MSN



02/12/2014 Associate Professor Edwina Wright, Department of Infectious Diseases, discussed the progress in #HIV research.
Medical Journal of Australia

03/12/2014 Professor Jayashri Kulkarni, Director, MAPrc, discussed how childhood trauma in women can affect the genetic disposition of their children.

3AW

03/12/2014 Adjunct Associate Professor Steve Ellen, MAPrc, on his favourite guest for the show.

774 ABC