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APHCRI at the ANU |
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Robert Wells is the Director of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute and Menzies Centre for Health Policy at The Australian National University. He has a broad role to work across the ANU in the areas of health research and policy analysis, including a number of projects in the fields of primary health care and workforce policy. He participates in national committees advising governments on research and medical training. Robert is a former first assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Ageing where he was involved in research policy, Commonwealth/State relations, health workforce, rural health programs, safety and quality and programs for better management of major diseases such as cancer, diabetes and mental health. Mr Wells managed the Commonwealth's health workforce programs from the early 1990's. He chaired the Medical Training Review Panel and represented the Commonwealth on the Australian Medical Workforce Advisory Committee (AMWAC), the Australian Health Workforce Officials Committee (AHWOC) and the Australian Medical Council (AMC). He has chaired a number of workforce committees established under the auspices of the Australian Health Ministers Council, including working parties on national medical registration and specialist medical training and has represented Australia internationally on medical workforce matters. |
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Associate Professor Kirsty Douglas (MBBS, Dip. RACOG, MD, FRACGP) is a Research Fellow of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute at The Australian National University. After completing her undergraduate training in medicine at the University of Adelaide, Kirsty undertook doctoral studies at Oxford, investigating the epidemiology of eclampsia in the United Kingdom. Returning to Australia she completed her GP specialty training and took up practice in Canberra. She later joined the staff of the University of Sydney Canberra Clinical School and then the ANU Medical School where, as initial Acting Associate Dean for Rural and Community, she helped to establish the medical school’s GP and population health curricula and its Rural Clinical School. Kirsty’s prime focus during the formative years of the ANU Medical School has been on curriculum development and teaching but she has maintained a research interest in childhood obesity and general practice workforce issues and social epidemiology. Throughout this time she has continued to work in clinical general practice initially in private and more recently at the local Aboriginal Controlled Medical Service Winnunga Nimmityjah. |
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Laurann Yen (B.Sc. Psych, M. Psych.) is a Research Fellow with APHCRI and associate director at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy. A clinical psychologist by training, she worked for a number of years in community health practice in Tasmania and South Australia, before moving into health services management. She has held executive positions in health services management and planning in Australia and the UK, most recently as the General Manager of ACT Community Health. In the UK, Laurann was involved in national and regional planning and management of the GP fundholding initiative as Assistant Director of Primary Care with Yorkshire Regional Health Authority; and worked extensively in primary care development with the Office for Public Management, where she was a Fellow. |
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Dr Rhian Parker (BSc (Econ) Hons, MSc, MPET) PhD is a Research and Policy Synthesis Fellow at APHCRI. She is a sociologist by training and joined APHCRI after many years of teaching and researching in the area of primary health care. Rhian has taught at the University of Queensland, University of Melbourne and Monash University and was most recently Director of the Healthpact Research Centre at the University of Canberra. Rhian has particular expertise in designing teaching materials for distance delivery. Rhian has been involved in a number of research projects as chief investigator, including projects funded by APHCRI through Streams Five, Six and 10 focusing on the role of nurses in the primary care setting. Rhian has also undertaken research into Chlamydia screening in primary health care health nurse. |
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Dr Ian McRae (BSc, Msc, BA) is an APHCRI Research Fellow. His PhD explores the economics of the general practice market in Australia. He has previously worked with APHCRI evaluating a diabetes program in a GP division. Prior to commencing his PhD Ian spent five years at the Department of Health and Ageing managing a range of programs, including GP financing issues like MBS schedule items and the practice incentives program. After his initial studies in statistics Ian worked in the Australian Bureau of Statistics before moving into the Bureau of Labour Market Research to set up what was then Australia’s largest longitudinal survey of the labour market. He then moved to the Department of Finance where he managed the team whose role was the oversight of health policy, before moving to the Department of Health. Ian’s interests are in health policy and financing, including the economic assessment of new technologies and new approaches to the delivery of health care. |
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Dr Laura Forrest (BSc, Grad Dip Gen Couns, PhD) is a Research Fellow at APHCRI. Laura works across a range of projects at APHCRI including the independent evaluation of the newly established ACT Walk in Centre located at The Canberra Hospital; a project examining consumers’ views of nurse practitioners in primary health care; a program of research examining the management of patients living with obesity and overweight by practice nurses; and the ACT sessional GP workforce study. In addition, Laura is collaborating with researchers from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and the Department of General Practice located at The University of Western Australia to develop a national study evaluating and implementing models of shared genetic care in primary health care. Prior to joining APHCRI, Laura completed a Graduate Diploma in Genetic Counselling and then went on to complete her PhD in the genetic counselling discipline at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, enrolled through The University of Melbourne. |
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Dr Kathryn Dwan (BSc Hons1, BA, PhD) is a health sociologist and a Research Fellow at APHCRI. Her doctoral work explored the communication difficulties experienced by GPs and Commonwealth health officers during a period of unprecedented engagement between the state and general practice (1998-2006). Since then she has been a chief investigator on the Australian General Practice Nurse Study, which adopted a multi-method approach to understanding the lived experience of practice nurses. With a colleague, she recently undertook and completed research on why so many GPs in Canberra choose to work part time. Kathryn has a growing interest in consumer and community involvement in health policy and practice and, with the Health Care Consumers Association ACT, is undertaking research into consumers’ views on their willingness to see practice nurses. Her particular strengths lie in qualitative research, however, she is currently working with interstate colleagues on the 'Professions in Australia Study' data, which comprises 30 years of longitudinal data about the careers of Australian doctors, engineers and lawyers. |
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Rebecca Pallavicini (BA(Hons), DipArts) is APHCRI's Institute Manager. Rebecca Joined The Australian National University full time in 1993, though she had previously worked as a research assistant in the history department of the Faculty of Arts. She has held administrative and managerial positions at the Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, the College of Law and ANU Library before becoming Manager of the outreach program in the Division of Information in 2001. Before joining ANU full-time Rebecca worked for many years as a registered nurse in operating theatres (anaesthetics) and prior to that in intensive care. She has worked in both NSW and ACT public and private hospital systems.
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Kimberley Brady (BA) is an Administrative Support Officer for the Institute. She provides administrative and secretarial assistance for the Institute staff, and is responsible for managing appointments, mail and phones. She is a recent graduate of The Australian National University, where she majored in Politics and International Relations. |
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Will Wright (BA, LLB) is APHCRI’s media and communications consultant. He previously worked as a journalist for Fairfax Community Network in Melbourne, where he was the health reporter for eight magazines, including The Melbourne Times and Melbourne Weekly Magazine.
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APHCRI Research Assistants |
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Tanisha Jowsey (BA Hons, MA) is a full time research officer for APHCRI. Tanisha works on the Serious and Continuing Illness: Policy and Practice Study (SCIPPS), primarily on a large qualitative study undertaken with people with chronic illness, their carers and health professionals. Her specialty areas within this study include qualitative methodology and analysis; multi-morbidity, patient knowledge and decision-making, carer experience and Indigenous health. Tanisha’s previous research experience as an anthropologist has addressed social aspects and implications of dementia (including health literacy and driving with dementia), breast cancer, alcohol-related harm among youth, and pesticide use in food. Tanisha’s primary interests are in the social dynamics of chronic, terminal, and rare illnesses. |
APHCRI Students |
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Karen Gardner (BA. MPH) is a PhD Student at the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute. She has worked in practice, policy and research roles in government, academia and the community sector. Her research interests are in primary health care performance, health systems change and aboriginal health. Her PhD is in the area of systems change in chronic disease management in indigenous community controlled health services. |
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Daniel McAullay (BSc, MAE (IH)) is a PhD student enrolled at the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute, at The Australian National University. He has previously worked as a clinician in a large tertiary hospital and an Aboriginal community control health service; a researcher in a large non-government children's research institute; and a senior policy manager in state government. His PhD will be investigating the contribution primary health care has made to the health of selected communities in Western Australia. |
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Carmen Pearce-Brown (RN, DipHSc, MCritCareN) began her PhD with APHCRI in 2008. Carmen joined APHCRI staff in 2007 as a Research Assistant working on the Serious and Continuing Illness Policy and Practice Study (SCIPPS). Carmen combines her APHCRI role with continuing as a practice nurse. She will be expanding on her involvement with the Serious and Continuing Illness Policy and Practice Study through her PhD by investigating access to pulmonary rehabilitation. This will involve looking at the development of health literacy by COPD patients, and the contribution primary health care makes in the pulmonary rehabilitation referral process. |
APHCRI Visiting Fellows |
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Dr Karen Luxford (PhD, FAIM) is General Manager of the National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre. In 2008-2009, Karen was awarded a Harkness Fellow in Healthcare Policy and Practice by The Commonwealth Fund. She undertook her Fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, Harvard Medical School, US. In her time in the US, she studied exemplar health care organisations focused on patient-centred care and the role of patient feedback in improving service quality. Karen is currently an Honorary Associate of the School of Public Health, University of Sydney and a Conjoint Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales. Her research interests include new models of care, patient care experience, promoting evidence-based best practice, and health services delivery. Karen has overseen the development, implementation and evaluation of a number of large national programs in a range of areas across the cancer care continuum and has published widely in cancer control. Her current appointments include: founding Executive Committee member of the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand, member of the Cancer Institute NSW Quality and Clinical Effectiveness Advisory Committee, and member of the Bureau of Health Information, Patient Care Experience Report Advisory Committee. |
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Dr Danielle Butler (B.Med.Sci (Hons), MBBS, MPH, FRACGP, Dip CH, Dip Trop Med) is a rural general practitioner by training, with a strong interest in public health, Indigenous health and international health. Danielle has recently completed her training through NTGPE in the Top End of the Northern Territory, working in remote and rural areas. She was the stream 15 travelling fellow to the Robert Graham Centre for Primary Care policy research, undertaking a project examining the use of measures of social deprivation in health care planning, using geographical information systems (GIS) methodology. Her research interests include social justice, primary health care and the intersection of this with policy. She will be working with APHCRI on further building GIS capacity and expertise for application to the primary health care policy sector. |
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Dr John Biggs (MB BS, MD, MA, FRCOG, FRANZCOG, DHMSA) graduated at Melbourne University and trained in obstetrics and gynaecology in Melbourne, Brisbane, London and Aberdeen, Scotland where he held a university lectureship. Returning to a clinical academic post in Brisbane he gradually moved into education and became Dean of Medicine and Professor at the University of Queensland in 1983. In 1991 he was appointed Dean of Postgraduate Medicine in the University of Cambridge and became increasingly involved in medical workforce planning. He and his wife returned to Australia in 2004 and John became chairman of the board of Coast City Country General Practice Training Ltd. He has been a consultant on postgraduate medical training for the national government of Pakistan and on hospitals in Lahore for the government of the Punjab. He has recently taken up the chair of the ACT Health Human Research Ethics Committee. |
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Professor Meredith Edwards is an economist with a PhD from the Australian National University. Through her career, Meredith has been a lecturer, researcher, policy analyst and administrator. She worked in the Commonwealth public service from 1983 until 1997 in many departments advising on some major social policy, education and labour market issues. She became Deputy Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 1993 and held that position until 1997. Meredith served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra from August 1997, when she also became Professor, until August 2002. She set up the National Institute for Governance in 1999 and was appointed its Director in that year, before stepping down from this position in December 2004. In 2005 she became Emeritus Professor at the University of Canberra. Since that time, Meredith has also been a Senior Consultant for Courage Partners. |
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