Newsroom

Kiarna and her proud mum, Sherry, are helping create more welcoming healthcare spaces for members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. 🖼️🎨

Along with other talented artists from the Pine Rivers State High School Indigenous Art Club, Kiarna recently visited RBWH to present her work, which will be displayed in some of our clinical areas.

Kiarna explains the inspiration for her piece, ‘Colours of Paradise’.

“The colour patterns represent the memories and stories passed down through time, and the bright colours and circular shapes show the ripples of water and the connection between people, nature and dreams,” Kiarna said.

After presenting their artworks, the students were led on a tour of RBWH cardiology services to select where they would like their work displayed to help foster inclusion and connection with patients, staff and visitors. 🩷💜❤️🩵💚 ...

"Terry`s last six months have been a blur. He had a stroke in May, spent time in ICU and had some complications requiring surgery. He was moved over here to STARS for his rehabilitation and at that point he couldn`t sit up on his own or eat. I`m a physiotherapist myself so would help each day with his mobility, and his team of carers have been amazing. Especially physiotherapist Angie - Terry calls her his guardian `Angela.` He`s now walking unaided, eating full meals, reading the paper and he even made arrangements with our sons to have three dozen roses delivered for our 36th wedding anniversary. Terry tells me you sometimes have to have a little bit of bad luck to realise how lucky you are."

💭Monday Mantra - Deb (wife to patient, Terry) talking about the wonderful team at STARS. Terry and Deb are looking forward to heading home very soon. ...

Tackling kidney disease requires laboratory and clinical approaches to bring cutting-edge discoveries to the bedside. This is where Clinician Research Fellow Dr Monica comes in - to bring new diagnostic tests and therapies to people with chronic kidney disease!

Dr Monica is a Clinician Research Fellow, Nephrologist, Translational Kidney Pathobiology Group Leader and Clinical Trials Unit Chair at the Metro North Kidney Health Service. Her team’s work aims to develop new minimally-invasive tests from extracellular vesicles (a.k.a. nanoparticles in the urine) to reduce the need for kidney biopsies.

She leads studies in the clinic to evaluate new drugs to treat different causes of chronic kidney disease and reduce kidney failure.

“Chronic kidney disease affects more than 2 million Australians and has significant impacts on how people live their lives” she said.

“By bringing ground-breaking laboratory techniques used in other fields to kidney disease research, we can develop new clinical tools that work better, reduce complications and halt the inexorable progression to kidney failure."

Dr Monica and her team’s work was recently presented in the Discovery and Translational Award Session at the Australia and New Zealand Society of Nephrology Congress in Perth.

Great work Dr Monica! ...

Advanced Care Planning Facilitators like Desre help us plan for our future, by identifying goals, values, and wishes for end-of-life care.

But Desre is also a myth-buster, visiting homes and presenting to community members on the importance of taking the fear out of the advanced care planning. 📜

While she acknowledges that decision making in a time of crisis is a hard thing to do, she says forward-planning can make all the difference.

"We want to look after you in a way that is meaningful, based on your values and needs, if the time comes that you cannot speak for yourself," Desre says.

"I`ve had so many people tell me that they feel better after the conversation, grateful that their wishes are known."

👏 Shoutout Saturday to Desre for her decades of dedication, both at Caboolture Hospital in advanced care planning and throughout her time at Metro North Health. ...