Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health

Q&A with Professor Jayme Bennetts

27 June 2022

Jayme is a Car­dio­tho­racic Sur­geon trained in Adult and Pae­di­atric Car­diac Surgery. He is cur­rent­ly Direc­tor of Car­dio­tho­racic Surgery at Flinders Med­ical Cen­tre, a Direc­tor of Ade­laide Car­dio­tho­racic, and Staff Spe­cial­ist at Women’s and Children’s Hos­pi­tal (Ade­laide) and Roy­al Dar­win Hos­pi­tal. He was recent­ly pro­mot­ed to Pro­fes­sor, Car­dio­tho­racic Surgery at Flinders University.

Jayme is the new­ly appoint­ed Clin­i­cal Lead for the Statewide Car­diac Care Clin­i­cal Net­work, at the CEIH.

Tell us about a mem­o­rable high­light in your career so far?

Some of the most enjoy­able moments have been aid trips to Fiji and Tan­za­nia. The appre­ci­a­tion and val­ue these patients express for the oppor­tu­ni­ties these trips pro­vide is unique and makes the effort worth while. Fiji has no local car­diac sur­gi­cal ser­vice and with­out these trips patients with sig­nif­i­cant rheumat­ic valve dis­ease would have no oth­er man­age­ment options. Tan­za­nia com­menced a local ser­vice and our involve­ment was to help them improve and estab­lish a car­diac surgery unit. 

What skills do you bring to the role as Statewide Car­diac Care Net­work Clin­i­cal Lead?

Since return­ing to Ade­laide I have had an involve­ment in a num­ber of clin­i­cal, gov­ern­ment, pro­fes­sion­al roles, includ­ing pre­vi­ous surgery and car­di­ol­o­gy net­works. With a broad clin­i­cal prac­tice across adult, pae­di­atric, pub­lic and pri­vate this gives me a wider per­spec­tive on the health sys­tem and how patients are pro­vid­ed service. 

Where do you see oppor­tu­ni­ties for inno­va­tion and improve­ment in the Car­diac Care specialty?

With increas­ing costs and increas­ing lim­i­ta­tions for hos­pi­tals to pro­vide evi­dence based care the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op and improve mod­els of care allow­ing patients equi­table access and improved out­comes. There is poten­tial of gain­ing effi­cien­cies that will allow us to max­imise the care pro­vid­ed and devel­op new ser­vices to the ben­e­fit of all patients. 

Tell us some­thing you’re hap­py to share from your life out­side of work, or some­thing most peo­ple don’t know about you! 

I grew up liv­ing in the coun­try and when I get a spare moment I enjoy spend­ing time out­doors or catch­ing a game at Ade­laide Oval. 

To read more about the Net­work, see Statewide Car­diac Care Clin­i­cal Net­work.