State Medical Director - Dr Phil Sargent
Dr Phil Sargent is the Queensland State Medical Director with the Organ and Tissue Authority. Dr Sargent will form part of a specialist team working closely with local hospitals and clinicians in their home state to improve access to life-giving donations and transplants for seriously unwell Australians.
Each State Medical Director brings significant professional expertise to the role in acute medicine and understands the opportunities and critical challenges Australia faces in transforming lives across the country. Dr Sargent is a Paediatric Intensive Care Specialist and currently holds the appointment of Deputy Director at the Mater Children's Hospital Paediatric Intensive Care Unit. Dr Sargent also serves as Examiner for the College of Physicians and for the Joint Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine.
Dr Sargent graduated from the University of Queensland Medical School in 1986. His medical interests include human factors in medical safety and quality, advanced paediatric life support and novel ventilatory strategies.
State Agency Manager - Tina Coco
Ms Tina Coco has been involved in organ and tissue donation since 1990, originally as a donor coordinator and then as Manager establishing Queenslanders Donate in 1999. She remains clinically active in donation as well as lecturing professionally and providing community education.
Ms Coco is a Registered Nurse with experience in neurosurgical and operating room nursing and holds an Operating Room Certificate. She has completed her Diploma of Applied Sciences in Nursing Management (QUT), Graduate Certificate in Health Management (QUT) and holds a Diploma of Advanced Transplant Coordination from the University of Barcelona. She has also achieved Certification as a European Transplant Coordinator.
Ms Coco has a special interest in the care and support of donor families and in 1999 received an Australia Day Award (Federal Electorate of Brisbane) for service to the community in organ donation and donor family recognition. Internationally, Tina is a Faculty Lecturer for the University Of Barcelona in Advanced Transplant Coordination Training and represents Australia as the National Key Member for ETCO (European Transplant Coordination Organisation).
She has published on organ and tissue donation and presented at international conferences as well as providing training workshops in Latvia, Germany and Malaysia on communication and family care.
Ms Coco was invited to be a consultant at the King Faisal Hospital & Research Centre in Riyadh to develop policies and train staff for the organ donation program in collaboration with the Saudi Centre for Organ Transplantation (SCOT).
Ms Coco holds longstanding membership with ATCA (Australasian Transplant Coordinators Association) and TSANZ (Transplantation Society of Australia and New Zealand) and she is committed to ensuring high quality care to donor families and ongoing expert education for all health professionals and the community.
DonateLife™ Team
The Queensland DonateLife™ team includes one state medical director, one state manager, five organ donor coordinators, five hospital medical directors, 21 clinical nurse consultants, one media and communications manager and one office manager.
