News

New Zealand ranks poorly in adolescent mortality and suicide

1 May 2012

The Science Media Centre approached Dr Annette Beautrais to comment on the recently published article in The Lancet medical journal that highlights New Zealand’s poor track record of youth suicide and death statistics. Read her comments to the Science Media Centre or in the NZ Herald article.

Vice Chancellor’s Prizes for the Best Doctoral Thesis

13 April 2012

Congratulations to Dr Tarik Sammour on his winning one of just five Vice Chancellor’s Prizes for the Best Doctoral Thesis awarded by The University of Auckland in 2011. Tarik won his award for his thesis: ‘The peritoneal response to injury and implications for laparoscopic insufflations’ which was undertaken at the South Auckland Clinical School through the Department of Surgery in the School of Medicine. Tarik’s supervisor was Professor Andrew Hill from the South Auckland Clinical School and he was co-supervised by Associate Professor Roger Booth. Criteria for nomination include the demonstrable significance of each thesis in its field, the originality and excellence of the research, exceptional academic and intellectual achievement as well as timely completion. This year 19 nominations were received from faculties for the five prizes, these out of a total of 319 doctoral degrees successfully awarded. To be nominated in this elite group is an achievement of some note in itself.

Geospatial Mapping of Suicide Clusters

12 April 2012

Professor Gregory Larkin and Dr Annette Beautrais’ research challenges assumptions and uncovers important and unexpected new information to inform suicide prevention activities. The recently published study was funded by Te Pou as part of the Ministry of Health’s Suicide Prevention Research Fund. The findings imply the need for careful, informed community postvention policies and management in the aftermath of a suicide. The data challenges the common assumption that suicide clusters exclusively or predominantly involve teenagers or young people. Although young people accounted for about half of cluster membership, the remaining half were aged 25 years and older. Far from being a homogeneous group of vulnerable and impressionable young people, those at risk of copycat suicide are likely to represent a number of distinctly different groups which have yet to be well-defined. View the publication on Te Pou.

Improving patient care in New Zealand hospitals

31 March 2012

Professor Harry Rea was interviewed by Margo White, New Zealand Listener and provided comment for the article, Improving patient care in New Zealand hospitals. View the article in the New Zealand Listener.

Improving quality of care while reducing costs: The Middlemore Hospital Very High Intensity User Programme

10 March 2012

The South Auckland Clinical School would like to acknowledge and congratulate Harry Rea, Professor of Integrated Care and Medicine and Gray Maingay, Chronic Care Pharmacist at Middlemore Hospital's Emergency Department, on the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand publishing the article on the project, Improving quality of care while reducing costs: The Middlemore Hospital Very High Intensity User Programme – the role of community pharmacy in integrated care to intensively manage the complex patient. This publication contains a detailed report of Middlemore Hospital's Very High Intensity User (VHIU) programme - an integrated model of care designed to improve the health of frequent presenters at Middlemore Hospital's Emergency Department. The purpose of the report is to summarise the VHIU model, the key findings and implications. The Pharmacy Guild sees it as a model that demonstrates the value of community pharmacy as part of an integrated health care system. Read the full report online.

Research Fellow receives HRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship

3 February 2012

Congratulations to Dr Daniel Lemanu, a Research Fellow of the Auckland Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (AERAS) Research Group. Daniel received a Clinical Research Training Fellowship from the Health Research Council to undertake his PhD research on the role of community-based prehabilitation in bariatric surgery.

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