ROLE OF COMMUNITY PARAMEDICINE IN NON-EMERGENCY PRESENTATIONS
Dr Robbie King
Lecturer in paramedicine and researcher, Australian Catholic University (ACU) Brisbane &
Senior Advanced Care Paramedic/Community Paramedic,
Sunshine Coast District, Birtinya Station,
Queensland Ambulance Service, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Brisbane, Queensland | November 2024
Dr Robbie King is a Lecturer in paramedicine and researcher at the Australian Catholic University (ACU) Brisbane. He also continues to provide clinical care as a registered paramedic for community members served by a jurisdictional ambulance service. Dr King has gained significant experience working in an advanced practice, community paramedic style role, holding expert clinical insight into the nuances of paramedic-led community-based healthcare for non-emergency presentations. This often involves adopting a biopsychosocial approach, rather than following the biomedical model more associated with emergency medicine and paramedic culture.
To encourage a patient-centred approach to paramedic-led healthcare by exploring the unmet needs of people requesting unscheduled emergency ambulance care, Dr King advocates for greater consumer engagement in paramedic research. He completed his PhD in early 2024 which explored the patient perspective of paramedic-led healthcare when patients were not transported to hospital. This research generated a theory that describes a process of patients ‘restoring self-efficacy’ when their vulnerabilities are validated, and they receive clinically competent and compassionate care.
Dr King has presented at professional symposium internationally, and in Australia where he continues to encourage greater consumer involvement in research to inform development of paramedic education and ambulance service models of healthcare delivery. Dr King is a Fellow of the Australasian College of Paramedicine and member of various professional research and Community Paramedic working groups. His research focus includes exploring the role of community paramedics in improving health literacy, self-efficacy, and addressing the psychosocial needs of patients requesting emergency ambulance services.
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Junior Fellowship to develop vaccine for bacteria that cause ear infections
Dr Erin Brazel has a background in molecular and translational microbiology, with a focus on developing new ways of preventing and treating bacterial diseases. Recently Dr Brazel has been awarded a Junior Fellowship by the Passe & Williams Memorial Foundation.
The fellowship enables outstanding individuals to obtain postdoctoral training under the supervision of an experienced clinical or scientific researcher, with the view to establishing a research career in Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery in Australia and/or New Zealand.
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Immune mechanisms of coeliac disease and gluten-related disorders
Professor Jason Tye-Din is head of the Coeliac Research Laboratory at WEHI and a gastroenterologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. His expertise spans the immune mechanisms of coeliac disease, clinical care of gluten-related disorders, diagnostic discovery and pre-clinical and clinical drug development. His work aims to improve the health and quality of life of people suffering gastrointestinal immune diseases, particularly those caused by gluten and other foods.
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Big data research in maternal, perinatal and renal health epidemiology
Dr Erandi Hewawasam is a Research Fellow at the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit within the Centre for Big Data Research in Health at University of New South Wales (UNSW). Her work focuses on maternal and reproductive health, chronic diseases (e.g., kidney disease, endometriosis), and early-life outcomes. She is the Program Manager for the Fertility Medicine Data Asset for Australia (FM-DATA), an MRFF-funded national infrastructure project linking fertility, hospital, Medicare, pharmaceutical, and perinatal datasets covering more than 40 million individuals. She also coordinates the Early Life Course Platform, integrating around 20 New South Wales and Australian federal administrative datasets to support population health research.
