STAFF UPDATE
STAFF UPDATE
Dr David Leong joined the RNSH Endocrine Surgery Department following a previous Fellowship position in Melbourne. On completion of his training at RNSH, Dr Leong will return to Perth as a Consultant Surgeon. T.S. Reeve International Endocrine Surgery Fellow
Dr Robert Mechera has undertaken a second Fellowship year with the RNSH Endocrine Surgery department. Dr Mechera is due to complete his Australian Surgical Odyssey with Dr Peter Campbell at St George Hospital in 2023. When he returns to Switzerland, Dr Mechera aims to establish a dedicated Endocrine Surgery department in the Basel University Hospital. Australian and New Zealand Endocrine Surgeons (ANZES) Fellow
Doctor of Medicine (MD) Students
Dr Chehade has a medicine background and was keen to undertake a PhD focusing on the role of noncoding RNA PRINS in endocrine cancer. After completing her PhD, Dr Chehade has returned to the Surgical Education and Training (SET) program. Doctoral Students Supervisor: Prof Stan Sidhu Dr Marthe Chehade
Lucy Birtwistle
Lucy is a stage 3 student at Sydney Medical School and is undertaking a study into the evolution of minimally invasive surgical techniques in the management of adrenal disease. She is due to complete her degree in 2023. Supervisor: Clin. A/Prof Mark Sywak
Kevin Wang
Supervisor: Prof Stan Sidhu
Kevin completed his lab-based MD project in 2021. He focused on learning skills such as RNA extractions, qPCR, cloning, cell culture and phenotypic assays and was able to demonstrate the functional role of PRINS in breast cancer cell lines.
Tony Lian
Tony is a third year student undertaking his MD project within the department in 2021 and 2022. Tony’s project is focused on neuromonitoring in thyroid surgery titled: “A prospective study of electromyographic amplitude changes during intraoperative neural monitoring for open thyroidectomy”. Supervisor: Clin. A/Prof Mark Sywak
Dr Anila Hashmi
Krishna Vikneson
Dr Hashmi has continued PhD research which she started in 2020 examining the role of miRNA isoforms in adrenal cancer pathogenesis and utility as a diagnostic and prognostic marker. Dr Hashmi has made significant strides in highlighting the uniqueness of the miRNA machinery in adrenocortical carcinoma compared to other malignancies.
Krishna completed a MD honours research year and was awarded a high distinction for his work on the association of tumour volume and pathological outcomes in T1 differentiated thyroid cancers. Supervisor: A/Prof Anthony Glover
Tariq Haniff
Tariq completed a MD honours research year and was awarded a distinction for his work on predictive factors for recurrent laryngeal nerve injury in parathyroid surgery. Supervisor: A/Prof Anthony Glover
Dr Alex Papachristos
Dr David Leong
Dr Papachristos has transitioned from the T.S. Reeve Fellowship position to begin his doctoral studies on developing novel therapies for the management of advanced thyroid cancer. He is working with a leading biotech firm, EngeneIC, to use their nanoparticle platform for the treatment of locally advanced and metastatic poorly differentiated thyroid cancer and medullary thyroid cancer in mouse models, with the view to advance this work to human trials.
Dr Andrew Ooi participated in research activities within the department as a Clinical Research Fellow, Master’s Student candidate and Senior Surgical Resident. He undertook a study into clinical outcomes following surgery for thyroid cancer: “A two-decade experience in the management of differentiated thyroid carcinoma.” The study involved a collaboration with the University of Otago and investigated the role of machine learning in large clinical datasets. Clinical Research Fellow
Jessica Wei
Dr Robert Mechera
Jessica completed a research project for her MD/Arts degree with a systematic review on factors used for patient decision making in low risk thyroid cancer. Supervisor: A/Prof Anthony Glover
Registrars
Dr Jonathan Hew and Dr Jakob Koestenbauer were the two advanced trainees at RNSH in 2021. Both the trainees have completed their fellowship exam and had solid terms within the Endocrine Surgery department.
Henry Crayton
Henry started an extended MD honours project looking at the genotype-phenotype relationship of diffuse sclerosing variant papillary thyroid cancer which he will complete in early 2022. Supervisor: A/Prof Anthony Glover
University of Sydney
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Endocrine Surgery Annual Report 2021
Endocrine Surgery Annual Report 2021
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