Professor Guy Maddern - Port 'n' Talk

"Is Surgical Technology Out of Control" - Professor Guy Maddern

Given the major focus of health in the recent election campaign our second Port and Talk for semester two took us into the complex and innovative world of health technology and health economics.

Professor Maddern holds the R.P. Jepson Chair of Surgery at the University of Adelaide and is the Director of Research of the Basil Hetzel Institute based at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide. Professor Maddern's interests lie in hepatobiliary surgery, colorectal hepatic metastatic disease and minimally invasive surgery. Outside of his surgical interests Professor Maddern has a strong interest in incident monitoring, assessment of new surgical technologies and has served on various boards involved in surgical safety monitoring.

Our population is aging, health demand is increasing, health costs are increasing, the health workforce is declining and patients are decreasingly willing to pay for health services. This is the perfect storm for our health system which is expected to consume 100% of the State health budget by 2040. This is the grim picture painted by Professor Maddern at the commencement of our Port and Talk and introduced students to the demands which our health system will be facing as we progress through this century. The question which Professor Maddern had for students was, is surgical technology the solution to this problem?

On balance, Professor Maddern did feel that surgical technology was a solution to these challenges faced by our health system. The major concern that Professor Maddern had about the use of surgical technology was that many procedures have not undergone appropriate or sufficient clinical trials to demonstrate their superiority to standard therapy. Thus, although significant advances in surgical therapy have great scope to alleviate suffering, these advances must be appropriately tested and reviewed to ensure that they are the most appropriate treatment. 

Professor Maddern finished his discussion with some of the advances he has been making in ensuring that surgical technology is being appropriately reviewed. Organisations, such as ASERNIPS, are slowly being established to ensure appropriate supervision and analysis of new technologies being used in hospitals around Australia.

The night was concluded with questions from the audience which sought to further clarify the many issues faced by the health sector and medical practitioners. The evening was thought provoking and should see much discussion over the coming few days around college.

 

 

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