PRESS RELEASE: Professor Fiona Wood – Burns Heroine BURN INJURY, ACUTE TRAUMA TO CHRONIC DISEASE ASMR Medallist 2022
Winthrop Professor Fiona Wood AM FAHMS is a woman who is dedicated to improving health outcomes for patients with wound injuries.
Her outstanding work with the Bali bombing victims and spray-on skin is well known. How did she get there and what drives the continuing commitment to improve treatment and long-term outcomes. Professor Wood will address the National Press Club today to speak of her personal journey and the back story to the research pipeline and the sometimes gruelling path from bench to bedside.
Successfully treating burns victims takes a lot more than spray-on skin, initial first aid is crucial and impacts recovery outcomes for patients. Survivors or burns injuries can face increased risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, depression and chronic pain. Understanding the systemic impact of the injury can help in advancing interventions to prevent long-term problems and allow a complete recovery.
In this country, at this time, basic research is dangerously under-invested. This situation puts at risk the translation of knowledge informed by fundamental science to patient treatment; the pipeline that drives the innovation so needed to address global and local health issues.
Professor Wood has said, “Medicine is very different today than it was 100 years ago, and that’s the result of continually pushing boundaries and trying to improve current practices. Every day is just the beginning, an opportunity to discover something new, an opportunity to ask new questions”.
The future starts now with a multi-faceted approach of science across disciplines, technology, regulation, education, training and investment.
Many believe that the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) has settled the question of investment into health and medical research in Australia. What is essential to understand is that the MRFF is designed to support the translation end of the pipeline, not the basic discoveries which feed the desired end result of translation to improved patient outcomes. Static investment into the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), means that investment into fundamental research is declining and many, many research projects, judged as worthy of support by world standards, are lost to this country. Professor Wood believes this to be a loss this country cannot afford!.
WHO: ASMR Medalist 2022, Professor Fiona Wood
WHAT: National Press Club Address and Medal presentation
WHERE: 16 National Circuit, Barton, Canberra
WHEN: Wednesday June 8, 2022 – 11:30 to 1:30pm
Media contacts: Dr Emily Colvin 0410 475 509
Catherine West: 0415 928 211
Media Resource available from https://asmr.org.au/asmr-mrw/media/
