29 July 2022, Friday

Effective implementation of best practices may be challenging but often possible through quality improvement processes. Achieving and consistently practising safe surgery is indicative of an excellent centre.

APSIC would like to invite you to participate in the APSIC Safe Surgery Program where excellent centres will be given due recognition.

President of APSIC

APSIC Safe Surgery – Moving Ahead

Dr Ling is the Director of Infection Control at Singapore General Hospital. A clinical microbiologist by training, Dr Ling has been active in Infection Control work in Singapore and the region. She has been conducting training programs in infection control in China, Southeast Asia as well locally in Singapore since 1995.

She is also the Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, where she contributed to the training in microbiology. Her other interests are in quality improvement and research in antimicrobial resistance.

Assoc Prof Rossukon Khotcharrat is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Medical Affair, in the Faculty of Medicine at Naresuan University, Thailand. She specialises in Opthalmology, and sub-specialises in Cornea-External Diseases, Cataract, and Refractive Surgery. She completed her residency at Khon Kaen University, Khon kaen, Thailand, in Ophthalmology (2000 – 2004) and went on with her fellowship at Insituto Barraquer, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain, for Cornea and Superficial Ocular Diseases, Refractive Surgery (2004 – 2005) and Retinal Vascular Inflammation and Intraocular Tumor (2004- 2005).

Assoc Prof Khotcharrat has many peer-reviewed publications under her name and won numerous awards in the field of infection control.

Prof Dr Sasheela Ponnampalavanar is a Consultant Infectious Disease Physician at the University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) and Professor of Medicine at University Malaya, Malaysia. She is a Committee Member of The Malaysian National Antimicrobial Resistance Committee and is involved in the development of the national guidelines in infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship. She was awarded the 2020/2021 Fulbright scholarship and was attached Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Control Department at the John Hopkins Hospital from Sept 2021 to Dec 2021.

She is currently a committee member of the Malaysian Society of Infectious Diseases and Infection Control (MyICID) and the Malaysian Society of Infectious Disease and Chemotherapy (MSIDC). Her main interest is in hospital acquired infection, antimicrobial stewardship, and multidrug resistant organism. Dr Sasheela is involved in several local and international research collaborations in these areas of interest.

Dr Jiun-Yi Li is an experienced cardiovascular surgeon caring for adult cardiovascular patients in MacKay Memorial Hospital, which is a medical center located in Taipei, Taiwan. He was graduated from the National Taiwan University College of Medicine. Dr. Li completed his residency in surgery and fellowship in cardiovascular surgery at the National Taiwan University Hospital. After the training, he served as a cardiovascular attending surgeon in MacKay Memorial Hospital. At the same time, Dr. Li finished the PhD program at the Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine. In addition to clinical work, he served as the chief of Medical Quality Department in MacKay Memorial Hospital and the associate professor at MacKay Medical College.

As a cardiovascular surgeon caring for adult patients, Dr. Li has his clinical interest in coronary artery bypass, valvular heart surgery, heart failure surgery and aortic surgery. Dr. Li has the belief on less invasiveness and the durability of surgery. He did a lot of aortic sparing total arterial coronary bypass to reduce the chance of stroke as well as prolong graft patency. He also did robotic heart surgeries for precision surgery and minimal surgical wound. As the chief in Medical Quality Department, Dr. Li conducted several patient safety and quality improvement programs in MacKay Memorial Hospital. He also has high interest in teaching medical students and staffs. He is the curriculum director of evidence-based medicine and medical quality program in MacKay Medical College.

Dr Jui-Hsing Wang is an Attending Physician, in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, at Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital. He is currently the Deputy Secretary-General of Society of Taiwan Long-term Care Infection Prevention and Control (STLTCIPC).

Dr Wang has implemented numerous programs to improve the infection control community, such as Improving the Operating Quality for Cleaning, Disinfection and Sterilization of Medical Device and Equipment in the Central Sterile Supply Department (CSSD) of Hospitals, Care Quality Improvement Program for Invasive Medical Procedure, and Quality Improvement Program for Designated Hospital of HIV Care.

Dr Anucha Apisarnthanarak is current the Professor and Chief of Infectious Diseases Division at Thammasat University Hospital. He also serves as an Adjunct Visiting Professor at Division of Infectious Diseases, Washington University School of Medicine, USA. Dr. Apisarnthanarak’s research focus included infection prevention in resource-limited setting, infection control to prevent multi-drug resistant microorganisms as well as outbreak investigations. He published more than 250 peer-review articles and more than 20 peer-review book chapters. He has been a key committee member of many national and international societies including Thai National Nosocomial Infection Group, Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America, and Asia Pacific Society of Infection Control. Dr Apisarnthanarak also serves as editorial board for key infectious diseases and infection control journals including Clinical Infectious Diseases, Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology and American Journal of Infection Control.

Dr Mike Jones

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Ms Kathy Warye, United States
Principal, Infection Prevention Partners

Kathy is the founder of Infection Prevention Partners, where she advances the development and adoption of innovative solutions for the detection, prevention and management of infection. In 2010, she was named one of the “100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare” by Modern Healthcare Magazine for her influence in driving awareness of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and leadership in mobilizing a diverse community of stakeholders toward their reduction. Kathy is the former CEO of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology and WW Vice President of Infection Prevention for BD. She has spoken in over 20 countries.

Dr. Yi-Wei Tang is currently the China Chief Medical Officer of the Danaher Diagnostic Platform/Cepheid in Shanghai. Dr. Tang ranks among the top of the scientific field in clinical and molecular microbiology, as evidenced by his election as an Editor for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, an Associate Editor for the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, an Associate Editor for the Emerging Microbes and Infection, a Fellow of the American Academy for Microbiology and of the Infectious Disease Society of America. Prior to Danaher/Cepheid, he was the Chief of the Clinical Microbiology Service at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Dr. Tang has been recognized for his extraordinary expertise in molecular microbiology diagnosis and monitoring with over 250 peer reviewed articles and over 150 book chapters in this field during the past 25 years.

Dr. Romy Ho currently serves as Director, Medical Affairs, Cepheid for Southeast Asia. He is responsible for the regional medical affairs initiatives of Cepheid and serves as medical advisor for GeneXpert® System and its clinical application in Tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. Dr Ho has also taught, lectured, and held multiple roles as a key medical advisor in academia and IVD industry. He also played important roles in gaining adoption needed for implementation of national guidelines and reimbursement in the region. Prior to his career in medical affairs, Dr Ho worked as a medical practitioner in several hospitals in Southeast Asia.

CE-IVD. In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Device. Product may not be available in all countries.

This symposium brings together leading experts in the field to discuss the value of pneumococcal vaccination in the era of COVID-10 and share current challenges and future perspectives in the clinical area.

Dr Asok Kurup is an adult infectious diseases consultant at infectious Diseases Care Pte Ltd, Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre and visiting consultant to the Department of Infectious Diseases, Singapore General Hospital

He was a former visiting consultant at the Communicable Disease Centre, Tan Tock Seng Hospital where he ran outpatient HIV clinics. He was also a member of the Specialist Training Committee (Infectious Diseases) and a former teaching faculty at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Duke’s Graduate Medical School. He is the current chair of the Antibiotic Stewardship Committee of Parkway Hospitals and the Chapter of Infectious Diseases Physicians of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore since 2019. He is also the Chair of the Infection Control Committee of Mount Elizabeth Hospital and a member of Infection Control Association of Singapore (ICAS).

He has over 60 publications and 100 abstracts. Research Interests: Primary HIV infection, Community-acquired bacterial infections, particularly melioidosis and klebsiella septicaemia, invasive fungal infections, control of nosocomial Infections including novel strategies to control MRSA and multi-drug resistant gram-negative infections

 Charles Feldman is Distinguished Professor of Pulmonology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Professor Feldman received his undergraduate medical degree (MB BCh) from the University of the Witwatersrand. He also holds a PhD and DSc (senior doctorate) from the same University, both awarded on the basis of theses on the subject of community-acquired pneumonia. In 2022 he received an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Medicine (honoris causa)) from the University of Pretoria for his work on respiratory infections and particularly pneumococcal infections.

Professor Feldman is a Fellow of the College of Physicians (SA) and the Royal College of Physicians (UK) and is registered as a subspecialist in Pulmonology. In 1988/89 he was Research Fellow and Honorary Senior Visiting Colleague, Host Defence Unit, Department of Thoracic Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, and Royal Brompton Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

Professor Feldman is an active member of a number of national and international societies. His research interest is translational and is in the field of community-acquired pneumonia, particularly pneumococcal pneumonia and especially in the setting of HIV infection. He has a keen interest in adult pneumococcal vaccination. In addition to being part of large international clinical collaborations recruiting patients with community-acquired pneumonia, he has also contributed to basic research studies, investigating the effects of various pneumococcal virulence factors and the effects of antibiotics and exposure to cigarette smoke condensate on pneumococcal growth, expression of virulence factors and pneumococcal genetics. He has more than 380 publications overall.

William Kristanto is a Consultant at the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH), Singapore. He received his MBBS from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore in 2010, and was appointed Cardiac Rehabilitation Lead at NTFGH and Honorary Visiting Consultant at the National University Hospital where he completed his residency programme. In recognition of his contributions, Dr Kristanto was awarded the ‘Best Young Clinician’ in 2016 by NTFGH. He received his Fellows of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore (FAMS), Cardiology in 2017.

Dr Kay Choong See is Senior Consultant Respiratory Physician and Intensivist at the National University Hospital, Singapore and President of the Society of Intensive Care Medicine, Singapore. Dr See specialises in bronchoscopy, thoracoscopy and ultrasound-guided procedures. His research interests include pleural diseases, critical care ultrasound and medical informatics.