2016

"The Uneasiness of Change"

Rob Baker

Rob Baker is a perfusionist and the Director of the Cardiac Surgery Quality and Outcomes at Flinders Medical Centre and Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia.

Rob was a foundation member of the team to commence Cardiac Surgery and Liver Transplantation at Flinders in 1992. He completed his PhD in 1996 and his Perfusion CCP in 1998. 

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He has published over 120 papers in both extracorporeal technology and Cardiac Surgery.

He chairs the Australian and New Zealand Collaborative Perfusion Registry, and co-Chairs the multidisciplinary STS/SCA/AmSECT Perfusion Task Force involved in Guideline development. Rob has received 35 Awards including the 2017 John H Gibbon Jr Award.

2014

"The End of the Beginning"

Wayne Pearson

Wayne Pearson was Managing Director of Cellplex Pty Ltd Australia. Wayne was a champion of perfusion education and was a pivotal force in the success of the PDU Winter Meeting and the PDU Collaboration.  He passed away in 2015.

From the early 2000s, Wayne regularly attended meetings to better understand perfusion research and patient outcomes—his background being finance and corporate management. In 2004, wanting to put something back into perfusion, he proposed to sponsor a perfusion-focused meeting and Perfusion Downunder was born.  

As part of his Professor Merry Lecture, he said “A leader is defined as an individual who motivates and influences others towards the accomplishment of a pre-defined goal.” Indeed Wayne was a great leader.  In his own words “Every day, every minute, every moment in life represents the end of the past. More importantly, it heralds the beginning of the future.”

2013 

"The Third Man" 

Paul Myles

Paul Myles is Head of Alfred Health's and Monash University's Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine.

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Paul is the Chair of the Academic Board of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine, as well as the current Director of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at the Alfred. In addition, Professor Myles is an Australian NHMRC Practitioner Fellow, and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

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He has published more than 250 papers, is an editorial consultant for The Lancet and an editor of the British Journal of Anaesthesia. He has received more than $30 million in NHMRC funding. His research interests include large clinical trials in perioperative medicine, and measuring quality of recovery after surgery.

2011 

"Accidents are Inevitable" 

Tim Willcox

Tim Willcox is a perfusionist at the Greenlane Cardiothoracic unit at Auckland City Hospital and an Honourary senior lecturer at the department of Anaesthesiology at the University of Auckland.

Tim is a life member of the ANZCP, has served as ANZCP President and member of the Australia and New Zealand Board of Perfusion.

Tim has published widely in the perfusion literature and was a founder of Perfusion Downunder

A keen trekker, Tim lives in Auckland, is married with 2 daughters, 2 grandsons, 2 rabbits and 45,000 bees.