Many of the advances in health care in Australasia that are crucial to the safety and well-being of patients in acute care and life-threatening situations owe their origins to pioneering research undertaken by ANZCA Fellows.  Despite these contributions of ANZCA and its Fellows, current funding of research in Australia in the areas of anaesthesia, pain medicine and intensive care is the lowest of all medical specialties.

The ANZCA Foundation, established in 2007, is the vehicle created by the College to support research. The mission of the Foundation is:

• To further increase the safety and comfort of patients undergoing anaesthesia;
  

• To further improve the excellent outcomes for critically ill patients following surgery, trauma and life threatening medical problems; and
  

• To improve the treatment of acute pain, cancer pain and persistent non-cancer pain, focusing attention on ‘pain relief as a basic human right’.
  

ANZCA Foundation Board

The Foundation is governed by a community-based board of directors under the patronage of the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, His Excellency Major-General Michael Jeffery, AC CVO MC (Retired):

Major Research Challenges for the ANZCA Foundation

• ‘Brain monitoring’ during anaesthesia is now becoming feasible.  This new research will give us new insights into the way anaesthesia and the brain work, and could also prevent awareness under anaesthesia—one of the major fears of patients having surgery.
  

• Development of Anaesthesia Simulators and other sophisticated medical simulators holds great promise of major advances in training and re-training medical specialists in the management of ‘critical incidents’ in health care, including in operating theatres, intensive care units, emergency rooms and many other settings.
  

• New techniques and drugs in sedation and anaesthesia for surgery and medical investigations that promote rapid and high quality recovery for patients.
  

• Improved methods of prevention and treatment of post-operative problems such as headache, vomiting, fatigue and memory loss. Memory problems are common in elderly patients, particularly after heart surgery. Major research is currently under way by ANZCA Fellows investigating this problem.
  

• Brain protection following injuries such as trauma and lack of oxygen delivery has been a goal for many years.  Research and clinical trials are needed to follow up new approaches.
  

• Prevention of further lung injury in critically ill patients requiring artificial ventilation is becoming feasible.  Simple approaches can have dramatic improvements in outcome but much more research is needed in order to optimise ventilation and effectively treat acute lung injury.
  

• Acute renal failure and acute liver failure remain major problems in critically ill patients.  Supportive techniques need to be improved and new ones developed.
  

• Acute circulatory failure is common in the aging population. While there have been many scientific advances it is crucial that these advances are converted into useful therapies.  This requires further work and clinical trials.
  

• New strategies to fight infections, a major cause of death in critically ill patients.
  

• A major attack on cancer pain in adults and children—e.g., a study in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in 2000 found 89 per cent of terminally-ill children suffered substantially from pain in their last month of life.
  

• Development of new strategies to attack the massive problem of persistent pain in non-cancer patients.   A major study in Australia has reported that one in five Australians have severe persistent pain with an associated loss of 17.8 million work days each year; an NHMRC report estimated that this costs Australia over $10 billion annually.  The ‘team approach’ of the five specialist bodies in the Faculty of Pain Medicine has received worldwide recognition as the key to attacking this massive medical, economic, societal and humanitarian problem.
  

• Further refinement and implementation of highly promising new methods for treating acute pain (e.g., after surgery, trauma) to enable more rapid recovery i.e., ‘Acute Rehabilitation’, more rapid discharge from hospital and substantial cost savings to the community.
  

• The prevalence of severe persistent pain increases sharply in the older age population (an increasing sector of Australians).  New effective and well-tolerated pain treatments are urgently needed.
  

• Pain in children has been a much neglected area and promising new work by ANZCA Fellows holds out new hope.
  

 
For further information on the Foundation contact ANZCA_Foundation@anzca.edu.au.