Clinical Network Leads

Dr Peter Allcroft

Palliative Care Statewide Clinical Network Co-Lead

BMBS FRACP M Palliative Care

Dr Peter All­croft is a Senior Staff Spe­cial­ist at South­ern Ade­laide Pal­lia­tive Ser­vices, based at Flinders Med­ical Cen­tre South Aus­tralia. He ini­tial­ly trained in Res­pi­ra­to­ry and Sleep Med­i­cine, com­plet­ed his Mas­ters of Pal­lia­tive Care at Flinders Uni­ver­si­ty, and is cur­rent­ly under­tak­ing a PhD at UTS, explor­ing the unmet pal­lia­tive care needs of frail old­er patients with heart fail­ure. He is active­ly involved with clin­i­cal teach­ing and research pro­grams. He has an inter­est in Mod­els of Pal­lia­tive Care for patients with com­plex chron­ic med­ical con­di­tions. He co-found­ed the Motor Neu­rone Dis­ease Clin­ic which is based at Flinders Med­ical Cen­tre, and is the Deputy Chair of the Motor Neu­rone Dis­ease Asso­ci­a­tion of South Australia.

Dr Jemma Anderson

Adolescent Transition Care Statewide Clinical Network Clinical Co-Lead

Staff Specialist and Medical Unit Head, Adolescent Ward, Women's and Children's Hospital

Dr Jem­ma Ander­son is a staff spe­cial­ist and med­ical unit head of the ado­les­cent ward at the Wom­en’s and Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal and the first Ado­les­cent Physi­cian in South Aus­tralia. She also holds a spe­cial­ist qual­i­fi­ca­tion in Pae­di­atric Endocrinol­o­gy and is a senior lec­tur­er with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ade­laide. She is the cur­rent edi­tor for ado­les­cent med­i­cine with the Jour­nal of Pae­di­atrics and Child Health. Jem­ma has a long­stand­ing pas­sion for sup­port­ing healthy ado­les­cent devel­op­ment and is com­mit­ted to com­mu­ni­ty and youth engage­ment in devel­op­ing mod­els of care and research for young peo­ple. She is the lead for Pae­di­atric Eat­ing Dis­or­ders and Gen­der Med­i­cine at the Wom­en’s and Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal and has a spe­cial inter­est in sup­port­ing and empow­er­ing young peo­ple in their tran­si­tion across health services. 

Professor Christopher Barnett

Clin­i­cal Genomics Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work Clinical Lead

Clinical Geneticist

Prof Christo­pher Bar­nett has dual fel­low­ships in neonatal/​perinatal med­i­cine, clin­i­cal genet­ics and is the head of the Pae­di­atric and Repro­duc­tive Genet­ics Unit at the Wom­en’s and Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal in Ade­laide. He is the lead of the NHM­RC fund­ed Genom­ic Autop­sy Project and on the expert advi­so­ry com­mit­tee of the Genomics Health Futures Mis­sion. Christo­pher trained at the Wom­en’s and Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal in Ade­laide and at The Hos­pi­tal for Sick Chil­dren in Toron­to. He has research inter­ests in pre­na­tal genet­ics, fetal pathol­o­gy and rare child­hood diseases.

Associate Professor Christine Burdeniuk

Cardiac Care Statewide Clinical Network Clinical Lead

B.Sc.(Hons) BMBS, FRACP, FCSANZ

Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Chris­tine Bur­de­niuk is a Senior Staff Car­di­ol­o­gist at SAL­HN, bring­ing a wealth of expe­ri­ence and exper­tise to this role, hav­ing ded­i­cat­ed many years to advanc­ing car­diac care through her clin­i­cal prac­tice, edu­ca­tion and research. 

Her com­mit­ment to improv­ing patient out­comes and her inno­v­a­tive approach to car­diac care will be invalu­able as she embarks on a new jour­ney as Clin­i­cal Lead for the network. 

Since 2009 Chris­tine has been pro­vid­ing care to patients with advanced heart fail­ure and pul­monary arte­r­i­al hyper­ten­sion through­out SAL­HN and estab­lished a ter­tiary lev­el heart fail­ure ser­vice in Mt Gambier.

She has worked with the CAL­HN Cen­tre of Advanced Heart and Lung dis­ease as the Car­diac Lead to devel­op and stan­dard­ise the man­age­ment of advanced heart fail­ure and heart trans­plant patients in CALHN. 

She is active­ly involved in deliv­er­ing edu­ca­tion on a broad range of car­diac relat­ed top­ics, and is involved in heart fail­ure clin­i­cal tri­als and Aus­tralian heart fail­ure guidelines.

Chris­tine strong­ly believes it is impor­tant to focus on the ear­ly detec­tion of car­diac dis­ease and opti­mi­sa­tion of car­diac risk fac­tor con­trol to pre­vent and min­imise the devel­op­ment of heart failure. 

Professor Anne Burke

Chronic Pain Statewide Clinical Network Lead

Clinical and Health Psychologist

Anne is a reg­is­tered Psy­chol­o­gist with dual endorse­ment in the area of Clin­i­cal and Health Psy­chol­o­gy. With over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in the health ser­vice deliv­ery, she has a proven track record of ser­vice inno­va­tion and clin­i­cal­ly focussed research.

Anne is a Past Pres­i­dent of the Aus­tralian Pain Soci­ety (2019−2021) and a Clin­i­cal Pro­fes­sor with The Uni­ver­si­ty of Ade­laide. She is also the Co-Direc­­­tor of Psy­chol­o­gy and Allied Health Lead — Sur­gery 3 in Cen­tral Ade­laide Local Health Network.

Anne has a strong inter­est in trans­la­tion­al research and is keen for health sys­tem infor­ma­tion to be lever­aged more effec­tive­ly to sup­port sus­tain­able improve­ments in health­care delivery.

Dr Ruth Holmes

Urgent and Emergent Care Statewide Clinical Network Lead

MBBS BSc (Hons) MRCS (Ed) FRCEM FACEM AFRACMA

Ruth is a Senior Emer­gency Depart­ment Spe­cial­ist with­in Cen­tral Ade­laide Local Health Net­work and the Statewide Vir­tu­al Care Ser­vice. She grad­u­at­ed from Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don in 2000 and com­plet­ed her train­ing in Emer­gency Med­i­cine in 2013. 

Her clin­i­cal expe­ri­ence is broad, hav­ing worked in Emer­gency Depart­ments both in the UK and Aus­tralia. This broad expe­ri­ence has pro­vid­ed her many oppor­tu­ni­ties to observe and be part of dif­fer­ent sys­tems. Ruth’s clin­i­cal inter­ests are var­ied, but all align with her desire to opti­mise patient care with­in our sys­tems, includ­ing Elder­ly Trau­ma, Enhanc­ing cul­tur­al safe­ty with­in Emer­gency Depart­ment and human factors. 

Ruth has always had a pas­sion to see health­care deliv­ered in an effi­cient, com­pas­sion­ate, patient cen­tred manner. 

Kathryn Hourigan

Palliative Care Statewide Clinical Network Co-Lead

Consumer Representative

Kathryn is a con­sumer advo­cate and com­mu­ni­ty leader with a pas­sion for improv­ing health­care. She has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in lead­ing com­mu­ni­ties and advo­cat­ing for the voice of the con­sumer, and she is com­mit­ted to mak­ing health­care more acces­si­ble, afford­able, and equi­table for all.

Kathryn pro­vides a con­sumer voice on many aspects of pal­lia­tive care ser­vices for all South Aus­tralians. She is a mem­ber of the SA Pal­lia­tive Care Nav­i­ga­tion Pilot Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, the Grief and Bereave­ment fea­si­bil­i­ty Project Board and the Pal­lia­tive Care Research Col­lab­o­ra­tion Project Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee led by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ade­laide. She also Co-Chairs the Statewide Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Advi­so­ry Committee.

Kathryn has recent­ly con­tributed to the Con­sumer and Com­mu­ni­ty Engage­ment Com­mit­tee for the Barossa Hills Fleurieu Local Health Net­work. She is also a for­mer pre­sid­ing mem­ber of the Hills Area advi­so­ry coun­cil and the regions rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the pre­sid­ing mem­ber pan­el with the for­mer Coun­try Health, South Aus­tralia Local Health Network.

Kathryn is a mem­ber of the Human Research Ethics Com­mit­tee at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Aus­tralia. She is a for­mer reg­is­tered nurse, has a post­grad­u­ate in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion, and has a bachelor’s degree in Archi­tec­ture. Kathryn under­took research for the Cen­tre for Health Assets Aus­trala­sia, Fac­ul­ty of the Build Envi­ron­ment, Uni­ver­si­ty of New South Wales where advice was pro­vid­ed to Fed­er­al, all State Gov­ern­ments and the Gov­ern­ment of New Zealand on health facil­i­ty design.

Kathryn’s par­tic­u­lar research inter­est is hos­pice archi­tec­ture and the design of ther­a­peu­tic environments.

Associate Prof Michael Osborn

Can­cer Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work Clinical Lead

Consultant Oncologist/ Haematologist

Asso­ciate Prof Michael Osborn works at the Women’s and Children’s Hos­pi­tal and has also led the South Aus­tralian Youth Can­cer Ser­vice at the Roy­al Ade­laide Hos­pi­tal since its incep­tion in 2011. His main clin­i­cal and research inter­ests are leukaemia in chil­dren, ado­les­cents and young adults (AYA), as well as exer­cise in can­cer, and improv­ing health­care deliv­ery for chil­dren and AYA with can­cer. He was active­ly involved in the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of Youth Can­cer Ser­vices in Aus­tralia at a nation­al and state lev­el. He is cur­rent­ly the Aus­tralian prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor for a relapsed acute lym­phoblas­tic leukaemia clin­i­cal tri­al, as well as being involved in a num­ber of oth­er clin­i­cal research stud­ies. Michael is com­mit­ted to work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to improve the expe­ri­ence and out­comes for all South Aus­tralians with cancer.

Dr Jenna Paterson

Adolescent Transition Care Statewide Clinical Network Clinical Co-Lead

General and Acute Care Medicine Adult Physician, Northern Adelaide Local Health Network

Dr Jen­na Pater­son is a spe­cial­ist in adult inter­nal med­i­cine and peri­op­er­a­tive med­i­cine. She is cur­rent­ly a staff spe­cial­ist in the Gen­er­al Med­i­cine Unit at the Lyell McEwin Hos­pi­tal and Mod­bury Hos­pi­tal in South Aus­tralia. She has com­plet­ed a Grad­u­ate Diplo­ma in Ado­les­cent Health and Wel­fare to bet­ter enable her to pro­vide holis­tic and ongo­ing med­ical care to younger patients with com­plex med­ical comor­bidi­ties who are tran­si­tion­ing into the adult health­care sys­tem. She is pas­sion­ate about engag­ing and empow­er­ing young peo­ple in their tran­si­tion across health ser­vices, and in bring­ing the whole health­care team togeth­er to help smooth the often dif­fi­cult and chal­leng­ing move­ment between health sectors.

Dr Phil Worley

Surgical and Perioperative Care Statewide Clinical Network Clinical Lead

Consultant General Surgeon

Phil Wor­ley orig­i­nal­ly trained and worked as a rur­al GP before under­tak­ing Spe­cial­ist train­ing and spend­ing the last 20 years as a Con­sul­tant Gen­er­al Sur­geon in both the pub­lic and pri­vate systems.

He hopes to improve cross net­work col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in the state’s health sys­tem, and the sur­gi­cal jour­ney of all South Aus­tralians from diag­no­sis to discharge.

Phil recog­nis­es this requires the input and coop­er­a­tion of a broad cross sec­tion of stake­hold­ers and is look­ing for­ward to lead­ing an enthu­si­as­tic and com­mit­ted team to achieve this goal.