April 2005

Award recipient to study anaesthesia

Royal Melbourne Hospital’s Associate Professor Kate Leslie has received the prestigious Douglas Joseph Professor of Anaesthesia award for 2005.

This professorship is awarded quadrennially by the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA), to fellows who are making an outstanding contribution to the advancement of the speciality.

It allows the recipient to pursue scholarship and research in human anaesthesia in Australia and/or New Zealand.

Associate Professor Leslie is a staff anaesthetist and head of research in the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) Anaesthesia and Pain Management Department and Honorary Principal Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Melbourne.

Following her training in the RMH anaesthesia rotation, she worked in San Francisco, in clinical neuroanaesthesia and thermoregulation and depth of anaesthesia research.

Since her return to RMH, she has continued her interest in research conducting studies in the areas of intravenous anaesthesia, neuroanaesthesia and awareness.

Her work is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and ANZCA.

Associate Professor Leslie was a chief investigator of the B-Aware Trial, a large multicentre trial on bispectral index (BIS) monitoring to prevent awareness in high-risk patients.

This work has attracted international academic and media attention and is one of the studies that has formed the basis of the new ANZCA Clinical Trials group, of which Associate Professor Leslie is an executive member.

During her appointment as the Douglas Joseph Professor, Associate Professor Leslie will undertake research on the relationship between dreaming during anaesthesia and anaesthetic depth.

This research will be presented at the ANZCA Annual Scientific Meeting in Adelaide at which she will be the Australian Visitor.