Children's Perioperative (ChiP) Lab

Children's Perioperative (ChiP) Lab

This page is a research page. For clinical information, please view our anaesthesia service page on the Sydney Children's Hospitals Network website.

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The Children's Perioperative Lab (ChiP Lab) is the research arm for the Department of Anaesthesia based at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. We work in several areas, including brain blood flow patient monitoring during and after surgery, pre-hospital trauma management, malignant hyperthermia, and the application of virtual and augmented reality in perioperative and periprocedural care. 

We also support the training of medical students, registrars and fellows in research activities and assist other departments in multidisciplinary research activities. 

Objectives

It is our research objective to increase the basic safety of the anaesthetic process, ensuring improved care for children. We achieve this through our work in neurodevelopment, to better understand the biological anaesthesia processes as well as our work on monitoring and improving oxygenation during anaesthesia. 

We have collaborative projects with many other national and international research groups and aim to support the growing community of paediatric anaesthesia and perioperative medicine researchers worldwide. 

Impact

  • We have developed a more humane experience to administered anaesthetic drugs to children by using virtual reality (VR) and other related techniques. 
  • Some anaesthetic gases have greenhouse gas effects thousands of times greater than CO2, so we have introduced measures to reduce our carbon footprint through our work. 
  • Our work in neurodevelopment is helping to better understand anaesthesia processes and provide clinicians with safer modes of anaesthesia. 

Collaborators

A/Prof Justin Skowno

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A/Prof Justin Skowno

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Group Leader, Senior Staff Specialist & Conjoint Associate Professor, USYD. Justin's research interests include non-invasive optical monitoring of cerebral/vascular physiology, data acquisition and nitric oxide physiology in congenital heart disease.
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Dr Jonathan de Lima

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Dr Jonathan de Lima

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Senior Clinical Lecturer, University of Sydney. Jonathan's research explores pain developmental biology. His interests are in acute pain management, paediatric cardiac anaesthesia and nitric oxide physiology in congenital heart disease.
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Dr Andrew Weatherall

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Dr Andrew Weatherall

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Co-Head of the Department of Anaesthesia, Clinical Lecturer. Research interests include prehospital applications of non-invasive monitoring, virtual and augmented reality in perioperative and periprocedural care and applications of 3D printing.
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Dr Reza Kahlaee

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Research Officer
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More team members

  • Ms Emily Sunnucks - Research Assistant
  • Ms Lydia Watson - Research Assistant
  • Dr Margaret Perry - Malignant Hyperthermia Group
  • Dr Gail Wong - Clinical Lead, Malignant Hyperthermia Group