Clinical sciences

The intersection of research and clinical care within MQ Health – at the interfaces between the faculty and Macquarie University Hospital and MQ Health clinics – provides a unique incubator to foster clinical research.

A considerable part of our research in clinical sciences involves investigating new and innovative surgical approaches, from the development of novel orthopaedic surgical procedures and minimally invasive surgery for cancers to the development of surgical databases and protocols for best-practice.

Other efforts include understanding the role of bacterial biofilms in hospital-acquired infections and identifying novel solutions to these infections.

Our clinical research in allied healthcare has a major focus on chronic pain of different types. For example, our researchers are undertaking studies and trials to determine better methods to characterise and diagnose low-back pain as well as new approaches to prevent its recurrence. Other work is dealing with knee, neck and other forms of chronic pain.

Common to all these research areas is the aim of delivering better patient experience and quality of life through improved clinical care.

Research groups

• Clinical ethics research group (Prof Wendy Rogers)
• Health Professions research (Prof Catherine Dean, A/Prof Mark Hancock,
  A/Prof Julia Hush, A/Prof Taryn Jones, Dr Tim Doyle , Dr Joel Fuller,
  Dr Kathryn Mills, Dr Verity Pacey, Dr Karen Peebles, Dr Kate Scrivener )
• Orthopaedic biomechanics research group (A/Prof Richard Appleyard,
  Dr Dane Turner)
• Surgical infection research group (Prof Anand Deva, A/Prof Karen Vickery)
• Surgical robotics research group (Prof David Gillatt)