Dr Simon Craig receives TSANZ / National Asthma Council Fellowship

Dr Simon Craig

Congratulations to Dr Simon Craig who has received a research Fellowship from the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ) and the National Asthma Council. The Fellowship will support Dr Craig’s research into seeking a global agreement on core outcome measures relevant to acute severe paediatric asthma.

Dr Craig, an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the School of Clinical Sciences and emergency physician at Monash Medical Centre, is also the vice chair of the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) network, the largest paediatric emergency medicine (PEM) research network in the Southern Hemisphere.

PEM research networks throughout the world have highlighted severe acute asthma as a priority research area, with asthma being a common cause for children presenting at emergency departments and subsequent hospital admission.

“Unfortunately, almost every study in acute severe paediatric asthma has used different outcome measures,” Dr Craig said. “If you are not measuring the same thing each time, it’s really hard to combine the results of different studies to find out which treatment is the best.”

Dr Craig is leading an international asthma working group of collaborators from major PEM research networks worldwide to understand practice, synthesize existing evidence, develop better evidence to guide bedside assessment of acute asthma in children, and develop international consensus for outcome measures that are relevant to clinicians, patients, families, and healthcare systems.

“Our hope is to achieve international agreement on core outcome measures for future studies in acute severe paediatric asthma. That will allow us to design international clinical trials to help us identify the best treatments.”

The TSANZ and National Asthma Council Fellowship will allow Dr Craig to conduct critical work that will support the overall outcomes of his research.