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What an amazing year it has been!
Full of opportunities, both professionally and personally.
 
Here is a quick summary of the highlights of 2025:
 
·      January 2025 – presented at the Hokkaido Trauma Conference. “Evidence-based management of traumatic brain injury”.
·      February 2025 – commenced 6 months as the Acting Clinical Director of Surgery & Anaesthetics at RMH.
·      March 2025 – presented at the VIC/TAS Regional Health Advisory Group Symposium. “Royal Melbourne Hospital Wartime History”.
·      April 2025 – attended ANZAC Day dawn service and marched in the Sydney ANZAC Day Parade with Navy Health Service.
·      May – presented at the Australasian Students’ Surgical Conference in Sydney. “Civilian and Military Neurosurgery”.
·      May 2025 – completed the Great Ocean Road Running Festival half marathon.
·      June 2025 – deployed to Fiji with RACS Global Health program, operating in Suva and Lautoka.
·      July 2025 – completed the Run Melbourne half marathon.
·      August 2025 – attended the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia (NSA) Annual Scientific Meeting, Stereotactic Interest Group of Australasia (SIGA) Workshop, and the Australian and New Zealand Pituitary Alliance (ANZPA) Meeting.
·      September 2025 – attended the Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology (COGNO) Annual Scientific Meeting.
·      October 2025 – walked the Cape to Cape Track in WA (135km, from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin).
·      November 2025 – taught on the Definitive Surgical Trauma Care (DSTC) Course.
·      November 2025 – celebrated the 80th Anniversary of the Department of Neurosurgery at RMH.
·      December 2025 – presented on the NSA Neuro-Oncology Workshop. “Stereotactic Radiosurgery for Brain Metastases”.
 
I was also fortunate enough to spend time over Christmas with my family.
 
I hope that 2026 brings similar opportunities for my professional development and personal growth.
I wish for good health for all of my friends, family, and colleagues.
But most of all, I trust that 2026 brings improved health for all of my patients, their family, and carers.

Peter Mac recently reached an exciting milestone after treating the 1000th patient with the Gamma Knife in May 2025.

Since launching the service in 2021, the Victorian Gamma Knife Service has treated patients with a range of conditions, from cancer and benign tumours to neurological and vascular conditions.

https://www.petermac.org/about-us/news-and-events/news/details/gamma-knife-milestone-1000-patients

Recently, RMH was awarded the Premier’s Large Health Service of the Year for 2022 at the Victorian Public Health Awards.

And in Oct 2022 the Victorian State Government announced a $5 – 6 billion, 12-year project to upgrade and rebuild the RMH and Royal Women’s Hospital. The work starts with a new 400-bed hospital at the nearby Arden precinct, which will then allow for major upgrades at the Parkville campus.

https://www.thermh.org.au/news/new-hospitals-royal-melbourne-hospital-and-royal-women’s-hospital

Happy Birthday to us!
The Victorian Gamma Knife Service at Peter Mac turned 1 this week!
And yes, there was cake (of course)!

A huge congratulations to the team, who got this service up and running during a global pandemic. We’ve now treated more than 230 patients from across Australia and NZ, with more than 730 treatment episodes. Approximately one quarter of patients are treated in a rigid frame, and the rest were treated using a relocatable mask.

The Gamma Knife is a medical device used to deliver focused radiation to an intracranial target (also known as stereotactic radiosurgery, or SRS). It is a non-invasive alternative to open brain surgery for a variety of complex brain conditions, including acoustic neuroma, meningioma, pituitary adenoma, and brain metastasis. During Gamma Knife (GK) radiosurgery, up to 192 low intensity radiation beams from cobalt-60 sources converge with high accuracy on an intracranial target. At the radiation isocentre, where the beams merge, radiation dose is concentrated at the target, sparing healthy brain.

The Victorian Gamma Knife Service at Peter Mac is a new State-wide Radiotherapy Service. It is the only Gamma Knife in Victoria, and only the second in Australia to offer fractionated Gamma Knife treatments (i.e SRS delivered over multiple days, not one) using the mask-based Gamma Knife Icon technology. The Service was officially launched at Peter Mac in December 2020, and on 01 February 2021 the first patient was treated using Gamma Knife.

For more information about the Gamma Knife Service at Peter Mac, please visit the Victorian Gamma Knife website: https://www.petermac.org/gammaknife (https://www.petermac.org/gammaknife)or contact my Parkville Neurosurgery rooms: 03 9348 2712.