Staff at NSW Health Pathology took home a swag of awards and three of our scientific trainees graduated with a Fellowship of the Faculty of Science at Pathology Update 2024 in Adelaide.

The Roy­al Col­lege of Pathol­o­gists of Aus­trala­sia (RCPA) held its annu­al Pathol­o­gy Update 2024 in Ade­laide on March 1–3, attract­ing hun­dreds of del­e­gates and an array of local and inter­na­tion­al speak­ers. The theme of this year’s event, “Answers in Adelaide”.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy would like to con­grat­u­late our three sci­en­tif­ic trainees who grad­u­at­ed with a Fel­low­ship of the Fac­ul­ty of Science:
• Nicole Bain from John Hunter Hos­pi­tal (Genet­ic Pathology)
• Julie Sher­fan from Con­cord Hos­pi­tal (Chem­i­cal Pathol­o­gy), and
• Xiumei Wei from Suther­land Hos­pi­tal (Immunopathol­o­gy).

“A Fel­low­ship (or PhD) is the high­est qual­i­fi­ca­tion a sci­en­tist can attain,” explains Vanes­sa Thom­son, NSWHP Direc­tor Sci­en­tif­ic and Tech­ni­cal Strategy.

“It’s high­ly regard­ed and an avenue to sci­en­tif­ic lead­er­ship in the pro­fes­sion,” she said.

Spe­cial­ist Anatom­i­cal and Foren­sic Pathol­o­gist based in Wol­lon­gong, Dr Bernie I’Ons, was recog­nised by the RCPA as one of the Found­ing Fel­lows of the new­ly estab­lished Fac­ul­ty of Post-Mortem Imaging.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy staff were also recog­nised with a num­ber of awards at Pathol­o­gy Update 2024.

Shailen­dra Gune, Senior Sci­en­tist in Cytopathol­o­gy at Liv­er­pool, received the pres­ti­gious Kon­rad Muller RCPA Out­stand­ing Teach­ing Award (Sci­en­tist) for 2023.

The Award is pre­sent­ed to indi­vid­u­als who have made an out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the teach­ing of pathol­o­gy, in par­tic­u­lar the teach­ing of registrars.

Susi Guinane and Kyra Lyell from NSWHP’s Statewide Peri­na­tal Post­mortem Ser­vice received the Peri­na­tal Con­fer­ence and Edu­ca­tion Award, which will allow them to attend more pathol­o­gy relat­ed events such as the PSANZ con­fer­ence in New Zealand lat­er this year.

“This will allow NSW Health Pathol­o­gy to share the way the Peri­na­tal Post­mortem Ser­vice has been set up to help oth­ers look­ing to set up a suc­cess­ful cen­tralised peri­na­tal post­mortem ser­vice and to share the ups and downs of the NSWHP expe­ri­ence over the past 5 years,” said Susi.

RCPA Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice Awards were also pre­sent­ed to four NSWHP cur­rent and for­mer pathologists:
• Dr Ray­mond Chan – Roy­al Prince Alfred Hos­pi­tal, Head of Microbiology
• Dr Jan­ice Fletch­er – Prince of Wales Hos­pi­tal Genet­ic Pathol­o­gy (now retired from NSWHP)
• A/Prof Ragh­wa Shar­ma – West­mead Anatom­i­cal Pathology
• Dr Dianne Lit­tle – Foren­sic Pathol­o­gist (for­mer­ly of NSWHP Foren­sic Med­i­cine Lidcombe)

Micro­bi­ol­o­gy reg­is­trar at NSWHP-ICPMR West­mead, Annaleise Howard-Jones, won the DS Nel­son Prize for the best research pre­sen­ta­tion by a trainee. She pre­sent­ed her team’s work on the recent Mur­ray Riv­er encephali­tis virus out­break in Australia.

Pathol­o­gy Update 2024 kicked off with a ses­sion for trainees of the RCPA Fac­ul­ty of Sci­ence. Sev­er­al of our sci­en­tif­ic trainees and staff also pre­sent­ed oral and poster pre­sen­ta­tions at the conference.

Vim­lesh Dhir, Krys­tle Standen, Ani­la Hash­mi, Pra­bin Gyawali and Xiumei Wei were among sci­en­tif­ic trainees pre­sent­ing their research at the con­fer­ence on Day 1.

Dr Catri­ona Hal­l­i­day, Prin­ci­pal Sci­en­tist spe­cial­is­ing in Mycol­o­gy at West­mead and one of our sci­en­tif­ic lead­ers, was also invit­ed to speak on ‘Mol­e­c­u­lar in fun­gal diag­nos­tics (includ­ing der­mato­phytes)’ at the Mycol­o­gy Masterclass.

It was an out­stand­ing event, show­cas­ing the breadth of tal­ent and exper­tise of our hard-work­ing peo­ple here at NSW Health Pathology!

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