Dr Timothy Haydon (Director)
After something of a training degustation Tim has straddled the realms of cardiac anaesthesia and intensive care in equal doses. Particular clinical interests include cardiovascular physiology and support and cardiac ultrasound, as well as critical airway management, particularly in the ICU environment.
Tim is the Director of St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne ICU and one of St V’s CICM supervisors of training and has a keen interest in medical education and supervision as well as welfare of doctors in training. He also has an interest in the impact inter-practitioner interactions has on clinical decision making and patient outcomes.
Beyond the hospital walls Tim has active research interests in the ever controversial experiment of parenting, as well as the health benefits of home-made yeast products and very small scale farming.
Dr Patricia Hurune (Deputy Director)
Patricia was born in India and grew up in Zimbabwe where she completed her undergraduate MBChB degree. She moved to Australia in 2008 with her mind set on Obstetrics. She completed a diploma in Obs and Gynae with RANZCOG before taking a complete 180 degree turn and pursuing a career in critical care. Her ICU training started in the NT and she worked in both Darwin and Alice Springs with short stints in Katherine and Tennant creek. She moved to Melbourne in 2015 and completed her advanced training in St Vincent’s Hospital with a brief detour to the Royal Children’s Hospital PICU.
Her greatest moments in this profession have been shared with great mentors and supervisors, and so she is very interested in trainee welfare. Another strong interest lies in educating the future generation and she is heavily involved in the teaching program at SVHM. Patricia is also an ALS2 instructor and teaches on the Victorian Primary Exam Course (VPECC). She is undertaking postgraduate training in clinical education and hopes to become a CICM primary examiner one day. She is the 2019 VICEN chair and has worked towards improving trainee engagement.
Outside work, she dabbles in several activities including boxing, netball, painting, photography, dancing, hairdressing, and knitting. To date it is safe to say she needs to keep her day job, but she hopes to find her retirement plan in one such activity.
Dr Yvette O'Brien (Deputy Director)
Yvette is an ICU Consultant at St Vincent’s Hospital. She was admitted to fellowship of the College of Intensive Care Medicine in 2017 after beginning life as a physician trainee, before realising that she did not like outpatient clinics and preferred being amongst the action at MET calls.
She very much enjoys working in ICU and hopes to share that enthusiasm through medical education and mentoring, helping to coordinate delivering ICU education, including being the current chair of the Victorian Intensive Care Education Network, teaching students and trainees of all levels and instructing on a number of courses such as ALS and Bronchoscopy.
Her clinical interests include respiratory critical care, end of life, communication and organ donation and transplantation, as well as being involved in numerous audit and quality projects to improve clinical care of her patients including the Choosing Wisely movement.
In her spare time she enjoys pilates, is on a dancefloor near you, is an enthusiastic participant in karaoke and is awaiting her big break as lead singer in a band.
A/Prof Antony Tobin
Antony is an ex-deputy director of ICU at St Vincent’s and current Chief Medical Officer of the hospital. He completed training in respiratory and sleep medicine before training in intensive care medicines St Vincent’s. On gaining his ICU fellowship he practised intensive care, respiratory and general medicine in both the public and private sectors. He subsequently worked for 2 years as an Intensivist in a government hospital in Hong Kong, his time there coinciding with the outbreak of SARS. In 2003 he took up a full-time position at St Vincent’s working in intensive care and respiratory medicine, moving to full time intensive care work with his appointment as the deputy director. His interests include mechanical ventilation, tracheostomy management and clinical outcome analysis.
In 2017 he was appointed Head of Medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital, a role encompassing responsibilities for clinician engagement, strategic planning and clinical process improvement. He chairs a number of quality and planning committees within the hospital and has post graduate qualifications in epidemiology and health management.
Antony prefers a life devoid of the internal combustion engine, keeping his work, sleep and play within walking distance. He does however occasionally venture outside Melbourne’s golden mile to forage or to partake in international travel. He enjoys eating, drinking and cooking and runs regularly to enjoy more of the same. Whilst intensive care medicine is a serious business he believes humour at work is essential and enjoys rounds seasoned with idioms, witticisms and pithy sayings.
Dr Bernadette Hickey
Bernadette graduated last century from Monash University and completed training in Thoracic Medicine and Intensive Care to achieve the FRACP in 1993. A troubled and unproductive laboratory PhD project came to an end with the offer of a consultant position in the ITU at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Next stop was the delights of Houston Texas and a clinical fellowship at the University of Texas teaching Hospitals. Then followed a summer at the Harvard School of Public Health before returning home to SVHM as an Intensivist in late 1997.
Over the years Bernadette has been involved in a wide range of the organisation’s activities and committees. Her efforts are currently focused around end of life, clinical ethics and Organ and Tissue donation. Bernadette is a member of the FRACP National examiners panel.
Away from work Bernadette is an acknowledged lamington expert and alpine skier, with declining competence but continuing enthusiasm.
Dr David Williams
Profile pending
Dr Barry Dixon
Barry is a senior Intensivist who’s clinical acumen is only rivalled by his quick wit. Barry completed his MBBS in Sydney before obtaining his FRACP and FCICM qualifications.
His clinical interests include ECMO, ARDS and improving support post attempted suicide. He is a strong supporter of good end of life care. Barry has varied research interests including the application of nebulised heparin, pulse oximetry and various aspects of cardiac surgery.
Dr Manisa Ghani
Dual-trained in Emergency and Intensive Care Medicine, with broad critical care experience from clinical time at multiple Melbourne hospitals including St Vincent’s, Alfred, Austin, Box Hill and Royal Children Hospitals. She completed training in Emergency Medicine before completing Intensive Care Medicine training in 2014, and has been an Intensivist at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne since.
Her passion is in education, both in educating self as well as others. She has been involved in teaching and training since 2008, and is currently working towards formalising this with Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Education. She is an instructor for EMST (Emergency Management of Severe Trauma), APLS (Advanced Paediatric Life Support), and a director/instructor for ARC ALS2 (Australasian Resuscitation Council Advanced Life Support2) courses.
She is heavily involved in medical student teaching, both at the University of Melbourne St Vincent’s Clinical School and The University of Notre Dame Clinical School. Critical Care trainees will benefit from her SAQ workshops, which prepare trainees for the fellowship exam. She shares the position of CICM Supervisor of Training (SOT) at St Vincent’s Hospital ICU with Dr Tim Haydon.
Dr Steven Musca
Steve grew up and studied in Perth, before completing ICU training at The Alfred in Melbourne. He joined the StV team in 2019.
He has a passion for using technology and innovation to improve patient, family and caregiver experiences and outcomes. Projects range from quality improvement (choosing wisely) initiatives to technology and education aids. He also has a keen interest in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) techniques and is Director of the StV ECMO programme which consumes a lot of his time.
Steve is an easy-going but stoic patient advocate and dislikes medical hierarchies as everyone should be treated with respect and given the opportunity to contribute. He believes a fun and collaborative work environment is paramount to optimal outcomes.
Steve enjoys watching the West Coast Eagles win and playing tennis. He has a slight obsession with wellness and enjoys finding emerging ways integrative medicine can assist in living longer and healthier lives. He is the founder of We Know Health (not affiliated with SVHA).
