We have many great presenters excited to share and teach at our upcoming conference. While an agenda will be made available closer to the dates, we’d like to share here the speakers and topics.
Dr Natassia Tan is a gastroenterologist and hepatologist working across the Alfred and Eastern Health Networks. She is currently undertaking a PhD on PSC in Australia. She will be presenting on some PSC basics as well as a little from her current research.
Brooke Chapman is an experienced dietitian who works across the Austin Health Network, working closely with the Gastroenterology, and Liver transplant teams. She is undertaking her PhD at Melbourne University and has been internationally recognised in her research. Brooke will be talking to us about diet in various stages of liver disease as well as touching on diet in IBD.
Dr Alex Hodge is a senior gastronterologist working across Eastern Health as well as private practice. Along with his extensive PSC knowledge and experience he has also done a lot of research in fatty liver and is going to bring to us a presentation on Living well for your liver. While there is no specific PSC diet, there are certainly ways we can indeed look after our liver. Dr Alex is a returning presenter and some of you may remember him from our Melbourne patient forum a couple of years ago.
Tania Daniels is an educator at Carers Victoria, where she has been reaching community carers since 2017. Tania has a rich background of training and education experience and holds a Bachelor of Arts, Master of Education and Cert IV in education and training. She is passionate about education and [promoting wellbeing in carers and is looking forward to bringing us an interactive session on Self Care for Carers.
Associate Professor Graham-Radford Smith is a senior gastroenterologist with extensive training and experience in gut disorders – including Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Dr Graham developed the Crohn’s and Colitis Centre at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital where he continues to work in clinics as well as further his research. He was key in developing Australia’s first series of IBD specialist clinics as well as the IBD specialist nursing role. He is chair of the ANZ IBD Cornsortium and Chair of Crohn’s and Colitis Cure. A/Prof Graham is going to share with us the unique features of IBD in PSC and how is it set apart of IBD alone.
Dr Kate Lynch is the head of IBD services at Royal Adelaide hospital, returing from the UK after completing her Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) in Clinical medicaine at the University of Oxford, entitled “Peripheral blood, Liver and Intestine specific lymphocytes in Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis and Inflammatory Bowel Disease”. She is an international speaker who also worked with our UK family PSC Spport UK. We are very fortunate to have her presenting two topics over the weekend. “Prognostication in PSC” and “Clinical Trials and Future Therapies”.
A/Prof Palak Trivedi is very kindly joining us from the UK before his summer break with his family. Dr Palak is a senior consultant Hepatologist who has devoted his clinical and resarch career to studying immune-mediated and chronic cholestatatic liver disease – specifically PSC and PBC. He is the chief investigator for the UK-PSC consortium and based at the University of Birmingham. We are very fortunate to have him bring to us his work on Manipulating the gut microbiome to treat PSC.
A/Prof Stuart Roberts is head of hepatology at Alfred Health, Clinical Professor of Gastroneterology, Monash University and Chair Australian Liver Association Clinical Research network. His research areas include PSC. Auto-imune liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, non-alocholic liver fatty liver disease and chornic viral hepatitis. We have asked A/Prof Stuart to unpack some of the guidelines of care developed for PSC in other countries and to help us understand their purpose, meaning, and how they might play out in a practical sense in the Australian context.
Professor Winita Hardikar is the head of the Liver and IntestinalTransplant program and senior gastroenterologist at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. She has clinical and research interests in PSC as well as Alagille’s Syndrome, PFIC and biliary atresia. As well as completing her gastroenterology and paediatric training through Melbourne University and RCH, she also spent 3 years at Yale university on her post doctoral studies on ontogeny of bile acid transport. Dr Hardiker will talk to us about our very special paediatric PSC population, including some of the characteristics and challenges that define PSC in our gorgeous kids.
Dr Mark Lacey completed his chiropractic degree in 1993 and has practiced both overseas and here in Australia since. Dr Mark belivieves in holistic care of people and will talk to us about the benefits of general wellbeing and health maintenance and how chirpractic care can benefit many people. This is a great one for those with PSC as well as their carergivers – we all need to be as strong and fit as we can be.
In addition to the above we are planning to have some focused peer groups and still waiting to secure a pschologist to talk about mental health strategies while dealing with chronic illness. Not to mention our dinners that we are planning for each state city.
Go to event page to sign up today for the conference.
