Members

Dr Dick Ongley (Chair)

After completing training in anaesthesia (2008) and general medicine (2009), Dr Dick Ongley saw the developing specialty of perioperative medicine (PoM) as a way to use his skills and improve patient safety. He is the previous chair of the PoM Special Interest Group and founder of the Australasian PoM meeting.

He works as a specialist anaesthetist at Canterbury Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand Canterbury (where he is the lead for the Anaesthesia Assessment Clinic and perioperative medicine) and in private practice. He has also worked as a consultant in Australia in both public and private practice.

Dick joined the POMRC in 2017 to represent anaesthesia and the South Island/Waipounamu.

Stephanie Thomson, NZRN Comp, MN, NP (Deputy chair)

Stephanie Thomson is the General Manager of Southern Cross Hospital, Rotorua where she also works as a nurse practitioner in adult perioperative care. Most of her 35 years of nursing experience has been in critical care and perioperative nursing. She has worked extensively in the USA, including in the quality and risk management department at a large tertiary care hospital.

Stephanie has also worked as a medical ethics consultant for many years and was fortunate enough to undergo ethics training at Georgetown University, Washington DC. She is a strong patient advocate and is passionate about the role that nursing plays in providing patients with optimal outcomes.

Dr Kerry Gunn

Dr Kerry Gunn is an anaesthetist, and deputy clinical director (perioperative) at Auckland City Hospital. He has an interest in liver transplant and trauma anaesthesia, which has led to research in coagulopathy and massive haemorrhage management. He chairs the Auckland Blood Transfusion Committee, which has introduced systematic changes in blood product use throughout the hospital. He has an interest in improving patient outcomes through process changes in perioperative care.

Kerry is a member the NZ National Council of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA), the Continuing Professional Development Committee of ANZCA and NZ Anaesthesia Education Committee. In the area of transfusion, he is a member of the steering committee for Patient Blood Management of the National Blood Authority (Australia) and the Massive Transfusion Registry.

Dr Jason Gurney

Dr Jason Gurney (Ngāpuhi) is an epidemiologist and director of the Cancer and Chronic Conditions (C3) Research Group at the University of Otago, Wellington. He has led national-level projects investigating disparities in perioperative outcomes for Māori patients, including a Health Research Council project focusing on this issue. He is a board member of Hei Āhuru Mōwai (National Māori Cancer Leadership Group), and also works for Te Aho o Te Kahu – Cancer Control Agency.

Professor Andrew Hill

Professor Andrew Hill is a professor of surgery at the University of Auckland. He has established an internationally recognised research group in perioperative care at Middlemore Hospital in South Auckland. He runs a busy surgical research group and has made seminal contributions to understanding the metabolic response to surgery. Through multiple clinical trials he has explored different ways of improving postoperative recovery.

He has over 230 peer-reviewed papers, with a focus on medical education and perioperative care. He is the supervisor of 20 current or past MD/PhDs. He was awarded the University of Auckland Teaching Excellence Award for Research Supervision in 2014 and the Gluckman Award for Research in 2016.

Andrew is a Councillor on the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) Council and is head of the Surgical Research Society of Australasia. He is also president of the International Surgical Society.

Professor Jonathan Koea

Professor Jonathan Koea (Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Tama) is a graduate of, and clinical professor of surgery, at the University of Auckland School of Medicine. He undertook general surgical training in New Zealand and post-fellowship training in surgical oncology and hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York City. He is head of the upper gastrointestinal unit at Waitematā Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand Waitemata. He is a member of American Society of Clinical Oncology, CommNETS and the NETWORK! Collaborations, a board member of the Australian and New Zealand Hepatopancreaticobiliary Association, and the hepatobiliary and surgical oncology sections of RACS as well as being an examiner in surgery for RACS.

Jonathan’s research interests include surgical and ablative treatment for upper gastrointestinal cancers and neuroendocrine tumours, quality in surgery and indigenous health.

Dr Jay Ritzema Carter

Dr Jay Ritzema Carter is an intensive care specialist at Christchurch Hospital. She completed training in both cardiology and intensive care medicine in hospitals in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom and therefore has had exposure to critically unwell postoperative patients in many different hospitals with varied clinical systems in place. Jay has an interest in critical care cardiology and has conducted research in haemodynamics and echocardiography. She obtained a PhD in medicine from the University of Otago.

Nicki Macklin

Nicki Macklin is a trained occupational therapist, with an additional Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health and Master of Primary Health Care through the University of Otago. She is currently undertaking a PhD with the University of Auckland Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, exploring intelligent kindness in health care. After experiencing years of navigating the health care system as a parent of a child with complex medical needs, she became passionate about person-centred and integrated care, and this has been her driving motivation in her work and study.

Along with a local general practitioner (Dr Harry Pert) in Rotorua, they designed a person-centred nursing service, to help wrap support around patients and their families navigating the vulnerable transition period between hospital and home. This was adopted by the local area and ran with great success, achieving significant cost savings for the local hospital as well as improvements in perceived patient experience and outcomes. Nicki is a strong advocate for paying attention to the patient experience of care and placing kindness at the heart of the business of health care.