twrama 1841_august_2.. - AMA WA

MELANOMA CONFERENCE 2012
Hosted by the Scott Kirkbride Melanoma Research
Centre, the inaugural National Melanoma
Conference will be held on 23-24 October at the
Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle, Western Australia.
The conference program brings together the
world’s leading melanoma researchers to talk about the
very latest in melanoma clinical trials and outcomes,
molecular signalling pathways, radiology therapy
breakthroughs and much more. Distinguished guest
speakers include Professor Charles Balch (Professor of
Surgery at John Hopkins Medical Institute), Professor
Boris Bastian (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer
Center), Professor John Thompson (Melanoma
Institute Australia), Professor Grant McArthur
(Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre), Professor Graham
Mann (MIA, University of Sydney) and Professor
Nick Hayward (Queensland Institute for Medical
Research).
To register please email
carolyn.williams@waimr.uwa.edu.au.
For more information visit www.skmrc.org.au.
WOOLDRIDGE FACES BAN
The former Health Minister Michael Wooldridge
faces a ban from corporate life over his stint as
chairman of the company that ran the failed retirement
village group Prime Retirement and Aged Care
Property Trust.
Dr Wooldridge, who was Federal Health Minister
between 1996 and 2001 and now sits on the boards of
two listed companies, faces the ban as one of five former
directors of Australian Property Custodian Holdings
(APCH) targeted in legal action brought by the
corporate watchdog.
The Australian Securities and Investments
Commission alleges Dr Wooldridge and other
directors of APCH breached their duties to investors
by authorising the payment of a $33 million fee to
managing director Bill Lewski when the trust listed
on the ASX in 2007. Investors pumped $550 million
into the float, only to see Prime Trust collapse into
administration in October 2010 after nervous lenders,
led by the Queensland bank Suncorp, appointed
receivers over its retirement villages.
RESEARCH NETS RCPA SCHOLARSHIP
research project which investigated and analysed cases of thyroid
A carcinoma in patients has earned a fourth-year medicine student on
Notre Dame’s Fremantle Campus an academic scholarship from the Royal
College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA).
Keith Potent, who is currently completing a Bachelor of Medicine/
Bachelor of Surgery (Honours), said he was “honoured, humbled and
overjoyed” to have received the scholarship.
The scholarship will provide financial assistance for Mr Potent to present
his research at future medical conferences and to have it published online.
His research project covered a retrospective analysis of cases of
carcinoma of the thyroid gland. While not as aggressive and malignant
as other cancers, men and women who have been exposed to high levels
of radiation or who have a family history of goitre are more susceptible to
contracting thyroid carcinoma.
Achievement: Professor Theo Gotjamanos
presents Keith Potent with the RCPA scholarship.
CONGRESS CALLS FOR WIDER USE OF TYPHOID VACCINES
On the back of the recent Coalition against Typhoid (CaT) congress, Australian immunisation specialists are calling
on all healthcare professionals to encourage patients to consider typhoid vaccinations before travelling to developing
and endemic countries.
The CaT congress which took place in Bangkok brought together global health leaders from across South and South-
East Asia, to discuss the high burden of endemic typhoid and the growing number of typhoid outbreaks in the region.
The CaT Congress recognised the serious impact of typhoid, particularly the rising and widespread threat of drugresistant
typhoid.
Panelists Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Vietnam, and Dr Christopher
B. Nelson, Director, Coalition against Typhoid, emphasised that typhoid vaccination efforts must be implemented in
conjunction with other public health programs, such as access to safe drinking water and the promotion of good hygiene
practices.
The congress has served as a timely reminder to Australian Healthcare Professionals that many Australians who are
preparing to travel would not have necessarily considered being vaccinated, even if they were travelling to a country where
typhoid fever was common.
According to the World Health Organisation, typhoid impacts an estimated 21 million people and causes more than
200,000 deaths across the globe per year.
August MEDICUS 43