History - University of Peradeniya

Dr. Chandra Abeysekera joined the Department of Paediatrics as a Senior Lecturer in 1991 after
serving in the Ministry of Health for 17 years. She was promoted to the grade of Professor in
Paediatrics in 2008 and served as the Head of the Department for six years from 2002 to 2008.
As the Head of the Department she has done much to upgrade the stands of administration and
streamlined the functioning of clinics. Very often she has risen to the occasion to take charge of
problems and issues that rise from time in the department and very resourcefully and
diplomatically solved them with great efficiency. She obtained the Fellowship of the Sri Lanka
College of Paediatricians in 2004 and became the President of the Sri Lanka College of
Paediatricians in 2006/2007. As the President she undertook the daunting and challenging task of
taking knowledge of paediatric care to the peripheries for the benefit of Medical Officers serving
in the out stations. She helped to start a Nurses Congress for the first time with the SLCP
sessions in 2007. This Annual Nurses Congress has since then become a very much looked
forward to event. .
Her main research interests include childhood UTI, chronic renal disease and diarrhoeal diseases
in children. She delivered the Prof. C.C. De Silva Memorial Oration on “Urinary Tract
Infections in Children” in 2004. She won the prize for the Best Research Paper of the SLCP in
1999 and 2004 respectively, and has also been the coauthor for the Best Research Paper of the
International Paediatric Nephrology Association Scientific Congress in 2004 and SLMA sessions
in 2003.
She is the Chairperson of the Central Province Emergencies and Life Support Group and has
assisted in organizing many Workshops in the Central Province to disseminate information on
Life Support to Medical Officers and Para Medical Staff.
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