Paediatric Neurology Unit
Since the introduction of MRI scans, 80% of children requiring a surgical procedure no longer have to be anaesthetised.
Currently headed by Dr Lindsay Smith, the Paediatric Neurology Unit is concerned with epilepsy or neurological dysfunction that may form a substrate for disturbed behaviour. Treatment through antibiotics has greatly reduced the incidence and severity of most forms of meningitis. Improved understanding of child development has been crucial in paediatric neurology since developmental assessment is the best guide to the integrity of the nervous system. Since the 1990s, CT scans and MRI have brought about significant progress in neurological investigation.Ms Elizabeth Lewis, Australia’s first female neurosurgeon, was on the Executive Staff of the Queen Victoria Hospital as a Divisional Chairman of Children. She was Acting Honorary Assistant Surgeon in 1967, Honorary Neurosurgeon in 1975 and Neurosurgeon at that hospital from 1975 to 1980. She specialised in spina bifida cases and contributed to medical advances not just within Australia but within the Asia-Pacific region through the establishment with Ms Christine Blackburn of the Blackburn-Lewis treatment centre in Vanimo in Papua New Guinea. In the late 1970s, Dr Kevin Collins was a paediatric neurologist at the Queen Victoria Medical Centre.
Neurologist and epileptologist Dr Jeremy Freeman, is currently supervising PhD researchers at Monash University.