Interviews from the Frontline

Dr Dan Holmes is a Specialist Anaesthetist and AUSMat Mission Team Leader. For the past 10 years and following his first mission to the Philippines (working in anaesthetics and ICU), Dan has led teams of experienced Australian clinicians to respond to disasters in Samoa, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Fiji. In early 2020, Dan was deployed to Christmas Island, where the team assisted in the repatria...

Dr Liz Whiting was appointed Clinical Lead for Queensland Health's new Reform Office earlier this year. A physician and geriatrician with more than 30 years experience, we spoke with Liz about why she chose medicine, her impressive career to date and her focus for the health system in her new reform role.

Dr Krispin Hajkowicz has been at the forefront of Queensland's response to the COVID-19 pandemic as the Director of Infectious Diseases for Queensland's largest tertiary hospital. We spoke with Krispin about his career, his experience as an infectious diseases physician during the pandemic, what we can expect in the next 12 months with COVID-19 and whether we'll see another pandemic in our lifetim...

Professor Liz Kenny AO has led a distinguished career as a Radiation Oncologist with Queensland Health for more than 40 years. She's published more than 130 scientific papers, she's been the President of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists, she's recognised globally in her field and is a sought-after international speaker. Yet Liz remains passionate about what drew her to...

Among her many professional hats, Associate Professor Catherine McDougall is an orthopaedic surgeon and Clinical Director of Metro North's new Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS). On this International Women's Day we chat with Dr McDougall about her career and the changes she's seen over time in medicine to 'Break the Bias'.

As a rural generalist, Dr Marlow Coates considers his role as a 'Jack of all trades'. In this interview, we talk to Marlow - a member of the Queensland Clinical Senate Executive - about his career and life as a doctor on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. Marlow is the Executive Director of Medical Services, Torres Strait Hospital and Health Service.

Liz Crowe is the Staff Wellbeing Consultant for the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. In this special episode of the Queensland Clinical Senate podcast series, we talk to Liz about why it would be normal for clinicians to be feeling anxious in the midst of Queensland's surge of COVID-19 cases, and what we can all do to look after ourselves. She also offers great tips for leaders and managers to...

After three years, countless meetings and a global pandemic, Senate Chair Dr Alex Markwell's term will come to an end on 31 December 2021. Alex's leadership has been exceptional, steering the Senate through the COVID-19 pandemic, always ensuring frontline clinicians had the most up-to-date information available to support them in their roles. Alex represented clinicians at all levels of the state'...

Dr Tanya Kelly is the incoming Chair of the Queensland Clinical Senate. She is an experienced senior clinician (anaesthetist) and has held clinical leadership roles for the past 10 years, most recently as Director of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine and Clinical Director for Digital Transformation within the Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service. We interviewed Dr Kelly about her career...

Russell Bowles has spent 40 years with the Queensland Ambulance Service, working his way up from cadet ambulance officer to Commissioner. As Commissioner, Russell oversaw the QAS during its move from an emergency service into the health system as an emergency health service and has been at the helm during the COVID-19 pandemic. In August 2021, Russell announced his retirement. We spoke with Russel...

Dr Anja Dehn is an emergency physician at the Princess Alexandra Hospital and Retrieval Services Queensland (RSQ). We spoke with Anja about why she chose emergency and retrieval and what challenges RSQ has had to overcome during the COVID-19 pandemic as they pick up patients from all corners of the state.

Shaun Drummond has spent the past seven years leading Australia's largest health service, Metro North Hospital and Health Service, in Brisbane. He was Chief Executive for the last three years until he finished in the role in July 2021. We spoke with Shaun about why this was the most rewarding period of his career, why he chose healthcare leadership, and what's next in his career.

Dr Mark Wenitong was one of Australia's first Indigenous medical doctors. Mark spoke to us from Cape York about what inspired him to become a doctor in his 30s and what graduating from medicine meant to his family and the broader community. He shared his goals for his new role with Queensland Health and, during NAIDOC week, what 'heal country' means to him. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of...

Ruth Stewart is the National Rural Health Commissioner. Appointed in 2020, she talks to us about her role and what she hopes to achieve. We also learn why Ruth left her home of more than 20 years in country Victoria to come to Queensland's Thursday Island and what inspired her to become a doctor more than three decades ago.

On this International Nurses Day, we talk with three exceptional nurses, including a Brisbane nurse who was working in New York during the city's first devastating wave of COVID-19, a Gold Coast Nurse who was infected with COVID-19 during a deployment to support Victoria's pandemic response, and an Indigenous nurse who started nursing in the city but, by chance, found her way back to the bush to p...

To celebrate International Midwives Day, we spoke with Queensland midwives Amanda, from a metropolitan health service, and Carolyn, from a rural hospital. And while they have two very different stories, they share the same passion for their profession.

Liz Crowe spent 25 years as a social worker, predominantly in paediatric intensive care and critical care. During that time she developed a passion for clinician wellbeing and started researching how she could support her colleagues. Her passion recently became her profession and Liz now draws on her clinical experience and research in her new role as a staff wellbeing consultant, counsellor and c...

There is no such thing as a typical day for Dr Carl de Wet. A General Practitioner in Logan, Carl is also the Primary Care Clinical Lead for Queensland Health's Healthcare Improvement Unit and the Gold Coast Primary Health Network (PHN). During COVID-19, Carl has taken on the role of Primary Care Lead for Queensland's COVID-19 pandemic response. We spoke to Carl about this role and whether he thin...

As COVID-19 vaccines begin to rollout across Queensland, we spoke with Infectious Diseases Physicians Dr Trent Yarwood and Dr Naomi Runnegar to get their expert opinions on the available vaccines and find out what it's been like working as infectious disease physicians and co-chairing the newly established Statewide Clinical Infection Network during the pandemic.

Emily Ragus is an Emergency Nurse who worked at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital for 15 years and with LifeFlight Australia as a Retrieval Nurse before moving to New York City to study a Diploma of International Humanitarian Assistance at Fordham University. Emily is currently deployed to South East Asia as a Health Delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross. Last year she wa...

Professor John Fraser is an intensive care specialist at the Critical Care Research Group at the Prince Charles Hospital and Director of Intensive Care at St Andrew's War Memorial Hospital in Brisbane. During COVID-19, John led The COVID Consortium to support intensivists across the world responding to the pandemic. The consortium grew to a group of ICU specialists from 54 countries and almost 400...

Dr Mark Little recently returned from deployment to Papua New Guinea where he led an Australian Medical Assistance Team (AUSMAT) to assist with the country's COVID-19 health response. An emergency physician at Cairns Hospital, Mark spoke with he Queensland Clinical Senate about his experience in PNG during the pandemic and how he adjusts after deployments to humanitarian disasters in our region. W...

This NAIDOC Week, we speak with Haylene Grogan about the highlights of her first 12 months as Queensland's first Chief Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Officer, what we can all do to show leadership and embrace the opportunity to drive health equity across the system, and why her dad is her inspiration.

Professor Keith McNeil spoke to the Senate about his role as Queensland Health's first Chief Clinical Information Officer and how that role has changed during the response to COVID-19. And he shares the key areas where digital technologies can continue to support positive changes in how care is delivered after the pandemic.

In this International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, the Queensland Clinical Senate sat down with the state's Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, Adjunct Professor Shelley Nowlan, the Director of Nursing and Co-Chair of the Division of Surgery at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Sean Birgan, and Townsville University Hospital's Midwifery Unit Manager of the Birth Suite, Sari Holland, to find out what...