State Medical Director - Dr Andrew Turner
Dr Turner has been Director Department of Critical Care Medicine at Royal Hobart Hospital since 2007, Honorary Treasurer of the Australia and New Zealand Intensive Care Society since 2002, Intensive Care Foundation Trustee/Director since 2005 and is a clinical lecturer at the University of Tasmania. He feels strongly that intensive care is a wonderful profession, and hopes to attract medical students to the field and to training at the Royal Hobart Hospital.
Dr Turner has an interest in research and evidence-based medicine, having spent several years on the Executive of the ANZICS Clinical Trials Group and has acted as the Principal Investigator in numerous studies conducted at the Royal Hobart Hospital. Previously he was Director of Intern Training for five years and the Director of the Division of Medicine at Royal Hobart Hospital for three years.
Dr Turner started his medical training at the University of Tasmania and began specialising in intensive care medicine in 1993. His training continued at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne and he became a specialist at the Royal Hobart Hospital in 1998. Dr Turner enjoys caring for the high end of patient acuity and the camaraderie of a tight-knit intensive care team. Dr Turner hopes to maintain the very highest level of patient care, and he is looking at ways to increase cooperation with the university.
Acting State Agency Manager - Dr Robert Thornton
Dr Rob Thornton is a registered nurse and a gerontologist. He holds postgraduate qualifications in nursing, administration, education, clinical nutrition and gerontology. He is part of the Royal Hobart Hospital team and holds a position as a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Tasmania.
Rob has a strong interest in end of life care. He has supervised at both masters and doctoral level, mainly in the areas of aged care. Currently, he is part of a research team with the Menzies Research Centre undertaking an analysis of the expressed wishes of individuals within completed advanced care directives in Tasmania with a focus on organ donation directives.
Dr Thornton has a very strong background in the initial development of new programs establishing and administering the Outreach Nursing Education Service and Nursing School of the Air in South Australia and aged care programs in Japan. Rob has been recognised as a public speaker both nationally and internationally and has published in excess of sixty articles. Rob has worked in three mainland states in metropolitan, rural and remote settings as a clinician, administrator and as a university senior lecturer. He has also been the Faculty of Health representative for Queensland University of Technology in Japan for ten years providing aged care education and consultancy. Rob moved to Tasmania four years ago and strongly feels this is Australia's best living and working environment. In his spare time Rob is a community representative on the Huon Valley Health Advisory Committee, and President of his local Rotary Club and a very part-time driver for Meals on Wheels.
DonateLife in TAS team
The Tasmanian DonateLife team includes, two hospital medical directors, three hospital senior nurses and one administrative/ communications executive assistant
