BLISTER MANAGEMENT AND IMPACT ON FIREFIGHTERS
David Burns,
Senior Paramedic & Paramedic Practitioner
LifeAid, Victoria, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Sydney, Australia | January 2025
David Burns, a Senior Paramedic with LifeAid, a private paramedicine company in Victoria and, has a diverse background in healthcare. He began his career as a registered nurse, progressing to critical care nursing specialising in liver transplants and cardiovascular surgery.
After serving on a rescue helicopter crew, he developed a passion for out-of-hospital healthcare, leading him to pursue paramedic training. Subsequently, he specialised in critical care and flight paramedicine, working in several regions in Australia including Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, and in the United Kingdom.
David’s journey in private paramedicine led him to reconnect with Alan Close, the Managing Director of LifeAid. After contributing during the devastating 16-week bushfire period known as “Black Saturday”, David became passionate about community and primary care aspects of paramedicine and joined LifeAid in 2023.
At the Australasian College of Paramedicine International Conference, David presented research focused on the foot care of firefighters during prolonged bushfire campaigns. During the 2019-2020 bushfires, over 10,000 firefighters sought care, with nearly 50% requiring attention for foot-related issues. David emphasised that inadequate foot care could bench firefighters for up to 10 days, diminishing their ability to protect communities and critical infrastructure. Recognising the economic benefits of prioritising firefighter health, David advocates that ensuring their well-being allows communities to recover effectively and enhances safety for all involved in firefighting efforts.
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Pregnancy in women with chronic kidney disease
Professor Shilpanjali Jesudason is an academic nephrologist and Head of Department at the Royal Adelaide Hospital’s Central Northern Adelaide Renal and Transplant Service, South Australia.
From 2017-2020, she was the Clinical Director of Kidney Health Australia, the peak body for patients with kidney disease. In this role she developed a passion for advancing kidney disease education in primary care.
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Mechanisms of resistance to menin inhibitor therapy and Acute Myeloid Leukaemia
Dr Rithin Nedumannil (MBBS, MPH, FRACP, FRCPA) is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, undertaking his doctoral studies in collaboration with the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (Cambridge, UK) and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (Melbourne, Australia). He is a clinical haematologist and haematopathologist with current appointments at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Austin Health and Northern Health.
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Biological interactions of extracellular vesicles
Raluca Ghebosu graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science with majors in Japanese and Biomedical Science (2018-2021). She then completed her Bachelor of Science (Honours) with the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Queensland in 2022, before pursuing a PhD with A/Prof. Joy Wolfram at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.
