PSANZ 2010 Program
 

Through the theme Specialties working together to ensure optimal longterm outcomes, the organising committee is creating a varied programme that will offer delegates updates on current best practice. The aim is to use a multidisciplinary framework to explore a wide range of influences on outcomes in perinatal care.

Speakers from a number of specialties will address maternal, fetal and neonatal outcomes related to the following themes: 

• Effect of maternal illness

• Placental function and dysfunction

• Care practices during childbirth

• Maternal mental health

• Neonatal respiratory control

• Perinatal pathology

Click here to view the congress program.

Keynote Speakers
 

Dr. Kennedy has been a midwife for 25 years. She is a graduate of the Frontier School of Midwifery & Family Nursing. She obtained her masters degree from the Medical College of Georgia as a family nurse practitioner and her doctoral degree from the University of Rhode Island. She has practiced in numerous settings including rural health, community and tertiary hospitals, and in academic practices. She is currently an associate professor at the University of California San Francisco (joint appointed in nursing and medicine). In 2009 she will become the first Helen Varney Professor of Midwifery at Yale University and President (Elect) of the American College of Nurse-Midwives. She is on the faculty of King’s College London where she was a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar during 2008.Her research includes numerous qualitative studies exploring the work of midwives and its relationship to health outcomes. She has also completed a clinical trial of CenteringPregnancy®, a group model of prenatal care, in two military settings.

Professor Michael Nelson

Dr. Nelson is the Virginia S. Lang Professor and Vice-Chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri,U.S.A. He is board certified in OB/GYN and Maternal-Fetal Medicine and  has 25 years of clinical experience in the care of the diverse high risk obstetrical populations at the Washington University Medical Center. He also has fifteen years of NIH funding, is the editor for Placenta, and received the Distinguished Senior Scientist Award from the Society for Gynecologic Investigation in 2007. His research focuses on placental function in normal pregnancy and the dysfunction that contributes to adverse outcomes in pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction. Specific projects include regulation of trophoblast differentiation and apoptosis, the roles of complement, hypoxia, and re-perfusion in placental injury, and the contributions of placental dysfunction in the sub-optimal outcomes associated with assisted reproductive technologies.

Dr. Saroj Saigal is a neonatologist, Professor Emerita of Pediatrics at McMaster University, and Director of the Growth & Development Clinic, a follow-up facility for high-risk infants.

Her research interests are in the outcomes of high-risk infants and she has published extensively on the subject. Dr Saigal and her colleagues have followed one of the few population-based cohorts of extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants longitudinally from infancy to adulthood. She has received funding for research throughout her career from MRC, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and NICHD for her follow-up and other studies. She has more than 150 peer reviewed and invited publications, and 138 published abstracts of scientific meetings. Dr. Saigal is also a collaborator for neonatal outcomes in several clinical trials, including Indomethacin for prevention of patent ductus arteriosus (Schmidt et al), Term Breech study (Hannah et al) and multiple courses of antenatal corticosteroids (Murphy et al).

Dr Saigal was a recipient of a 5-year career award as Senior Scientist of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2001-2005). She is an invited reviewer of scientific publications, research grants and PhD theses, and is on several national and international committees. She is a much sought after international speaker..

Dr. Saigal was President-elect, President, and Past-President of the Section of Neonatal Perinatal Medicine of the Canadian Paediatric Society 1998-2004, and served as a member of the Canadian Fetus and Newborn Committee for several years. In 2005, she received the Distinguished Neonatologist Award from the Canadian Pediatric Society for her contributions to the field.