Curriculum advisors

 


 

Dr Anna Balabanski

Senior Stroke Fellow, Royal Melbourne Hospital

 

Dr Anna Balabanski is a stroke fellow at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She is a graduate of the University of Adelaide and undertook her neurology training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the Alfred Hospital. She is currently undertaking a PhD in the epidemiology of stroke in Indigenous Australians, and has a particular interest in improving stroke service provision, including hyperacute stroke care, to regional and remote communities across Australia.

 

 


 

 

 

 

Dr Amanda Gilligan, Consultant Neurologist

MBBS (Hons), BSc, PhD, FRACP

 

Dr Amanda Gilligan, consultant neurologist, was appointed as the director of the Neurosciences Unit at Epworth Eastern, Box Hill in 2016.

Her main research interests are acute stroke therapies and management as well as organization of care to provide ideal rapid TIA assessment and treatment.

After graduating from Medicine at Monash University in 1989 with honours, she completed her clinical training in Neurology at the Royal Melbourne and the Austin Hospitals. As the clinical coordinator for the first thrombolysis trial in Australia, she started her career in stroke research in 1992. Her PhD undertaken at the National Stroke Research Institute and University of Melbourne, focused on the opportunities to treat stroke patients across Australia with different treatment modalities.

Since 2000, she has been committed to providing leading edge stroke care at Austin and Eastern Health. As part of the leadership team at Eastern Health, she has been pivotal in improving services across the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

Inspired by her sabbatical leave with Professor Pierre Amarenco at Bichat University, Paris, France in 2011, she has been promoting new ways to provide the rapid access to urgent medical care for patients with stroke and TIA.

 


 

 

 

 

Dr Jane Prosser

 

Dr Prosser completed her medical undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney, trained as a neurologist at Royal Prince Alfred and Royal North Shore Hospitals, and went on to be the ANZAN overseas fellow at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London. She returned to Australia to complete a PhD at The Royal Melbourne Hospital under Professor Stephen Davis, examining the relationship between stroke and cardiac disease. She is a staff neurologist at St George Hospital in Sydney, and Conjoint Senior Lecturer (UNSW). She works as a general neurologist with a special interest in stroke and vascular neurology.

 

 

 

 


Dr Monica Badve

 

Dr Monica Badve is a Staff Neurologist at St George Hospital, Kogarah. She has a special interest in stroke and multiple sclerosis. She completed a stroke fellowship at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and a multiple sclerosis fellowship at the University of Ottawa. She is presently pursuing an MPhil in the University of Sydney under the mentorship of A/Prof Maree Hackett and Prof Craig Anderson at the George Institute for Global Health. Her stroke research interests include cervical artery dissection, post-stroke pneumonia and hyperacute stroke therapies. She enjoys teaching medical students, basic and advanced trainees at the St George hospital.

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Thomas Chemmanam

 

Dr Thomas Chemmanam is a Neurologist and Stroke Specialist at Sir Charles Gardner Hospital (SCGH) and St John of God Public and Private Hospital (SJOG), Midland, WA. After finishing his initial Neurology training from India (SCTIMST, Trivandrum, India ? an institute of national importance under the central government of India), he migrated to Australia.

Dr Chemmanam completed one year of stroke fellowship at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, under the supervision of Prof Stephen Davis. His main research during this time was on Diffusion Weighted Imaging Reversal in acute stroke patients, which was published in Neurology. He also co-authored a book chapter on Intracerebral Hemorrhage during this time. He then completed one more year of stroke clinical fellowship at Box Hill Hospital, Melbourne, under the supervision of Prof Chris Bladin. His main research interests during this period were Metabolic syndrome and stroke and use of GLP-1 analogues in stroke. He designed a pilot trial of Exenatide in acute ischemic stroke, which was completed and published. He continued to be a Consultant Neurologist at Box Hill Hospital and was co-investigator in several international and local stroke trials.

Dr Chemmanam is currently working as a stroke specialist at SCGH, Perth which has one of the busiest stroke units in Australia and also at the comprehensive stroke unit at SJOG, Midland. He continues to be active in stroke research and training of junior staff at these hospitals. His current interest also includes improving stroke quality in rural WA and is involved in the WA telestroke program. Dr Chemmanam has worked as Neurologist in the developing world setting in India, and has keen interest in using his experience to promote collaborative strategies to tackle the global stroke burden.


 

 

Dr Teddy Wu

 

Dr Teddy Wu is a consultant neurologist at Christchurch Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand. He is a graduate of Auckland University and completed his Stroke fellowship at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. His research focuses on the evolution of clinical and imaging factors influencing outcome after intracerebral haemorrhage. He has an active interest in hyperacute stroke management particularly in reducing door to treatment time in ischaemic stroke and management of patients with large vessel occlusion. He has participated in medical education and has mentored many RACP examination candidates, trainees and medical students. He has been an active recruiter for EXTEND-IA TNK, EXTEND-IV, TASTE and STOP-AUST trials. He is also a Telemedicine neurologist for the Victorian Stroke Telemedicine Program.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Nawaf Yassi

 

Dr Nawaf Yassi is a consultant Neurologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He has a particular interest in using advanced brain imaging to predict outcome after acute stroke. He is also a research fellow at the Melbourne Brain Centre, Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, and Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. He holds an NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Development Fellowship investigating cerebrovascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia, as well as the interface between Alzheimer?s Disease and cerebrovascular disease.

 

 

 


 

  

 

 

 

Dr Yash Gawarikar

MBBS, MD (Med), FRACP

 

Dr Yash Gawarikar is a Stroke Neurologist and Senior Staff Specialist at Calvary Public Hospital, Canberra. He successfully established the acute stroke unit and service at Calvary public hospital in 2014 and is currently the Director of the Acute stroke service at Calvary hospital. Dr Gawarikar completed a Stroke Fellowship at John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle under Professor Chris Levi and Professor Mark Parsons. His clinical interests are in hyperacute stroke especially advanced multi-modal imaging and thrombolysis and also in systems engineering to deliver organized stroke care. He is a member of the Australasian Stroke Trials Network (ASTN) and has a keen interest in acute stroke research.  He is currently the principal investigator at Calvary hospital for TASTE, TEMPO-2, AFFINITY, HEADPOST, ATTUNE clinical trials. He is also involved in restructuring of acute stroke services in ACT. 

Dr Gawarikar is a Senior Lecturer in neurology at the Australian National University (ANU) medical school and heavily involved in medical undergraduate, basic physician trainees and neurology advanced training programs and has contributed towards developing curricula and course content at the ANU medical school. He is also supervising MPhil candidate at the ANU doing research in atrial fibrillation and stroke.

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Martin Krause

 

Dr Martin Krause received his medical degree from one of the oldest Medical Schools in the world - the University of Heidelberg, which was founded in 1386.

He started his training in Neurology in 1995 at the Neurology Department of the University Hospitals Heidelberg, Germany under the mentorship of Prof Werner Hacke a world leader in stroke therapy.

He finalized his medical these and received the Dr. Med. with magna cum laude on the topic of diagnostic accuracy of telemedicine and picture archiving and communication systems in 1997.

Dr Krause’s main focus of research was initially movement disorders. He was so fortunate to work together with the neurosurgeon Prof Volker Tronnier. Dr Tronnier was a pioneer of functional neurosurgery and deep brain stimulation (DBS). This research group explored DBS for dystonia which proved to be the first effective therapy in generalized dystonia. Dr Krause was founding member of the German Parkinson Competence Network, which linked clinical research institutions in Europe together and enabled large-scale clinical trials. In this group the first randomized controlled trial of DBS proved the effectiveness of DBS for Parkinson’s disease and different types of dystonia.

He had extensive training in neurophysiology and Botox therapy under the mentorship of Prof HM Meinck who had a special interest in stiff-man disease and functional disorders. Dr Krause was accredited as board certified neurophysiologist in 2001.

He further engaged in 2 years of neuro-critical care training in the largest neurological Intensive Care Unit.

Very early on Dr Krause was involved in acute stroke treatment and participated in all three ECASS trials, which led to the first effective therapy for acute stroke. He completed his training with neurovascular ultrasound training in 2005.

Following the comprehensive German specialist exit exam Dr Krause was registered as board certified Neurologists and Neurophysiologist in 2005.

He represented over 1000 physicians and surgeons in Heidelberg in the staff council. He was part of a small group negotiating new employment terms for doctors abandoning 36 hours shifts and standardizing training streams.

In 2007 Dr Krause accepted an offer as Associated Professor of Medicine by the University of Sydney as a full time medical academic. He was part of the Nepean Clinical School. He furthered the acute stroke service in Nepean Hospital and introduced transcranial ultrasound to diagnostic repertoire of neurovascular ultrasound in Nepean.

In 2011 Dr Krause was appointed as Stroke Unit Head in Royal North Shore Hospital and Neuroscience Director for the Northern Sydney Local Health District.

In 2015 he was appointed Head of Department of Neurology at Royal North Shore Hospital.

 

He has authored 45 peer-reviewed publications of which three were in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.

He has received numerous prizes for his work both nationally and internationally and is a frequent presenter at national and international conference and scientific meetings.

Dr Krause is a member of the strategic working party of the Agency of Clinical Innovation and the State-wide Stroke Service. He is a member of the Stroke Society of Australasia and the Stroke Research Network.

He is a member of the American Heart Association, the German Society of Neurology as well as the Australian New-Zealand Association of Neurologists.

 


 

Dr Martin Jude

 

Dr Martin Jude is a consultant Neurologist in Wagga Wagga, NSW. His Neurology training was undertaken at St Vincent's and St George Hospitals, followed by the ANZAN attachment at the Radcliffe Infirmary/University of Oxford, where he was clinical lecturer in Neurology. He is currently a conjoint Associate Professor, UNSW rural clinical school, with main interests in Stroke Neurology, Medical education and coordinating systems of care to enhance clinical outcomes for stroke patients. He has been instrumental in setting up Stroke Unit care in Regional NSW, and the rural stroke coordinators network in NSW, as well as stroke education systems for undergraduate medical and physician trainees, and is an active member of the RACP National Examination Panel. He is currently medical co-chair, Agency for Clinical Innovation/Stroke Services which is the clinician led organisation that informs the NSW Ministry of Health in relation to optimising Stroke systems and clinical outcomes.


DR. Shaloo Singhal

MBBS/B (MedSci), FRACP

 

Dr. Shaloo Singhal is a Consultant Neurologist at Monash Health. She is widely published, with a particular emphasis and interest in cerebral amyloid angiopathy. She graduated from the University of New South Wales in 2004 and went straight into Neurology training to follow her passion. From the outset, acute stroke clinical diagnosis, imaging and optimal management was a focus. She completed her Stroke Fellowship whilst at Monash Health which involved interpretation of multimodal acute stroke imaging (with numerous publications relating to this), cerebral amyloid manifestations with papers both in clinical and radiologic journals in addition to neuronal patterns of hypoxic brain injury/coma.  

She currently holds appointments at Monash Health and Epworth Healthcare. 

Dr. Singhal continues to be heavily involved in International Trial research and enjoys mentoring trainees through the often complex and challenging landscape of acute stroke.


Dr. Bill O'Brien

 

I am the director of stroke services on the Central Coast Local Health District, NSW covering both Wyong and Gosford hospital. I did my undergraduate and some of my postgraduate training in Ireland before moving to Australia where I undertook the Fellowship exams and completed my neurology training. I then spent a fellowship year in Newcastle focusing on acute stroke with a particular interest in hyperacute imaging and management of acute ischaemic stroke. I was appointed to the coast as a full time staff specialist in 2012. Since then I have focused on restructuring the acute service to allow for a sustainable model of care as well as introducing advanced imaging to the routine assessment of stroke patients. I have a keen interest in research in particular advancing our acute treatments for stroke as well as developing systems that translate best practice to routine care in different settings. I am currently involved in the setting up of a telestroke project in NSW.  


 

A/Prof Jonathan Sturm

MBChB, PhD, FRACP

 

Dr Jonathan Sturm is a consultant neurologist at Gosford and Wyong Hospitals on the NSW Central Coast, and Conjoint Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Newcastle. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Otago, NZ in 1992 and completed his neurology training at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne. He obtained a PhD in stroke epidemiology from the University of Melbourne in 2002. He is widely published in stroke and continues to be active in academic studies and clinical trials particularly in the areas of stroke and Alzheimer’s disease


 

A/Prof Mark Mackay

FRACP

Paediatric Neurologist and Epileptologist, The Royal Childrens Hospital