Anaesthesia, Intensive Care and Pain Management

This Division is associated with the academic discipline of Surgical Science in the Joint Medical Program organisational structure. The academic base of the Division is at the John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, with good liaison between anaesthetists and intensive care specialists throughout the region. All staff in the Division are currently actively involved with the support of medical student learning and teaching, and a number of them are actively engaged in research, whilst being committed to busy clinical practice. Academic staff members in the Division all hold conjoint appointments with the University of Newcastle.

Major streams

Students are supported in integrated clinical activities at several stages of the BMed program and include those of the three strands of expertise in the Division:

• Anaesthesia and perioperative care for patients in our hospitals who are undergoing either elective or emergency surgery, and across a broad range of surgical specialties.
• Intensive Care for patients with a wide range of acutely life-threatening illnesses and trauma, or recovering from major surgical procedures.
• Pain management for patients with painful consequences of their illnesses or their treatment. There is an emphasis on acute pain, although clinical staff in the Division are a part of the Hunter Integrated Pain Service which extends their expertise to patients with chronic pain syndromes and to collaboration with the Palliative Care Service as well.

Potential career opportunities

For medical graduates seeking future careers in these branches of medical practice, the Division is also the well-recognised hub for a regional post-graduate training program which leads to specialist qualifications with the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and its Faculty of Pain Medicine, and the Joint Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine.

Primary research

The Division has active research programs – mostly collaboratively with other Disciplines – in fields like applied cardiovascular physiology, the multi-disciplinary approach to pain management, medical educational research, and multi-centre trials in critical care.

Associated research centres or groups

• Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society clinical trials group
• Hunter Medical Research Institute, Cardiovascular Health Program
• Discipline of Human Physiology, University of Newcastle
• Hunter Integrated Pain Service

Research and teaching staff

The support of our students and the on-going research productivity of the Division by all of our clinical colleagues is gratefully acknowledged by the conjoint academic staff.