Meet the PICU team at Westmead

Dr Andrea Christoff, Medical Director MD FCICM FRACP

Dr Christoff trained in paediatrics in the United States and completed her fellowship training in emergency medicine and intensive care at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

Andrea is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand. She has completed a fellowship in Safety and Quality with the International Society for Quality in Health Care and is the Australia New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) paediatric representative for Safety and Quality.

She is dually trained in emergency medicine and critical care and is currently the medical co-director and lead for Quality and Safety in the PICU at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

Andrea is interested in facilitating the improvement in quality and safety in healthcare through networking and collaboration. Her areas of interest include resuscitation science, simulation-based education and organ and tissue donation.

She is the primary site investigator for pediRES-Q.org, an observational multicentre cohort study with an aim to characterise the quality of CPR and post-cardiac arrest care delivered to children, improving survival and neurodevelopmental outcomes through collaborative research.

Dr Elena CavazzoniMB ChB, BMedSci, PhD, MRCPCH, FCICM

Dr Elena Cavazzoni started her training in the United Kingdom in paediatrics and continued her training in paediatric intensive care in Australia. 

She has worked in intensive care at the Mater Children’s Hospital and The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and in 2010 became a Fellow of the College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand.

Elena has a significant interest in palliative care, organ donation, complex communication and medical education. Her research interests are in organ and tissue donation, transfusion medicine and neurocritical care.

She is a lecturer for the University of Sydney and has been involved in the development of the Paediatric BASIC course, Paediatric Neurocritical Care: Beyond BASIC course, Critical Conservation in PICU course and helps facilitate the Sydney Child Health Program.

Dr Jonathan Egan FCICM, FRACP

Jonathan is a paediatric intensive care doctor and paediatrician. 

He is a senior lecturer at Sydney University and has broad research interests.

He completed a PhD focusing on the recovery of cardiac function following heart surgery in infants and children. He is an examiner for the intensive care college and a supervisor of training for the paediatric and intensive care colleges. 

Dr Marino Festa MBBS MRCP(UK) FCICM MD(Res)

Marino trained in paediatrics and intensive care at Evelina Children’s Hospital, London, and completed his MD in the study of children with meningococcal septic shock at Imperial College, University of London.

Marino is a Fellow of the College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand and a member of the Australia and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS).

He is currently medical co-director of Paediatric Intensive Care at Children’s Hospital at Westmead. In addition, Marino is past chair of the Paediatric subgroup of the ANZICS Clinical Trials Group, and medical research lead for Kids Critical Care Research at Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

Marino is interested in health system improvement and the rapid translation of new knowledge to improve the quality of care and long-term outcomes of critical illness in children.

Dr Stephen Jacobe BMed MHL FRACP FCICM

Dr Jacobe has been a Consultant in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead since 2000. He trained at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children at Camperdown, Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick, and Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

Dr Jacobe is a Fellow of both the College of Intensive Care Medicine (CICM) and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, holds a Masters of Health Law and a Specialist Certificate in Palliative Care Medicine, and is a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. Dr Jacobe was the President of the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies (WFPICCS) from 2018 to 2020.

Dr Jacobe is the Supervisor of Training and an examiner for the CICM. He is also an instructor for PaedsBASIC. 

His interests include end-of-life care, ethics and law.

Dr Melanie Jansen

Melanie is a Paediatric Intensive Care Medicine specialist with additional training in Clinical Ethics. In addition to her medical qualifications, Melanie has a Master of Arts in Philosophy and is a Churchill Fellow, having completed her fellowship in Clinical Ethics and Medical Humanities across Europe, the UK, USA, and Canada.

Here at the hospital, Melanie’s portfolios include Trauma, Retrieval, Ethics in ICU, and PICU fellow education. She is a principal investigator on the Fibrinogen Early In Severe Trauma studY (FEISTY) Junior trial. She is also widely published in the ethics literature and contributed to many position papers and guidelines on complex decision making in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Melanie is interested in everything to do with intensive care: whole-body pathophysiology; intense teamwork; critical decision making; and the care of humans in all their raw and complex beauty. In her ‘spare’ time she reads books, cooks, tends to her wine cellar, and writes poetry.

Dr Greg Kelly BMedSc MBBS ClinDipPallMed MBA FCICM FRACP

Greg trained in paediatrics and intensive care at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne and completed his fellowship training in paediatric palliative care at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, and paediatric cardiac intensive care at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.

Greg is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand.

He is a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland Medical School, an instructor for the College of Intensive Care Medicine, Paediatric BASIC and APLS.

Greg is interested in how we deliver medical education and the contributions medical systems and technologies can contribute to improved care and palliative interventions.

He is a regular contributor to the Pediatrica Intensiva podcast, which he co-produces with colleagues from RCH Melbourne and Boston Children’s Hospital.

Dr Chong Tien Goh

Dr Tien Goh trained initially in Paediatrics in Malaysia before specialising in Paediatric Intensive Care. He became a Fellow of the College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand following further PICU Fellowship training at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

Chong is keen on the utility of big data in healthcare and is currently working on capturing and analysing high-frequency physiological signals in critical care patients.

He can also be found sometimes clambering up various walls around Sydney as he pursues his newfound hobby of rock climbing.

Last updated Monday 26th February 2024