Dr Melissa Viney

Melissa is a graduate in medicine and surgery from the University Of Melbourne 1986. Subsequently her junior post-graduate years were spent at the Repatriation General Hospital, Frankston Hospital and the Mercy Hospital for Women before undertaking anaesthesia training through the Northern Suburbs Anaesthetic Rotational Training Program in Melbourne followed by a fellowship in pain medicine at the Royal North Shore Hospital and a further fellowship in cardiothoracic anaesthesia at the Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane. Her post-graduate studies have included a Masters in Pain management and a Diploma in Medical Education, both from the University of Sydney.

Since February 2000 she has been employed as a staff specialist in anaesthesia and pain medicine at Barwon Health and also spent time as a locum visiting medical officer in the Department of Pain and Palliative Care at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

Melissa provides clinical teaching in perioperative medicine having developed the curriculum for this subject for Deakin University. She has also been involved in examining medical students in years 2-4 since the inception of Deakin University’s medical school. Melissa has been the supervisor of training for the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) for four years and for the Faculty of Pain Medicine (FPM) for 10 years. She was also the FPM supervisor of supervisors of training for four years.

Her clinical interests include pain in the cancer patient throughout the course of the disease including in survivorship, end-of-life care, assessment and care of the complex perioperative patient, education, training and welfare of doctors. Melissa has participated in the Avant medical experts panel.

Melissa was elected to the FPM board in 2011 where she has been the chair of the Training Unit Accreditation Committee after being the deputy for two years. She has been a hospital/unit reviewer for 12 years. She is also a member of ANZCA Training Accreditation Committee and undertook the South Island rotational program review some years ago. She belongs to the FPM Examination Committee and was extensively involved in the blueprinting process morphing into the curriculum redesign project and subsequently into the curriculum release project. During this project she participated in the steering committee and chaired the assessment sub-group after being heavily involved in developing the roles in practice and curriculum learning outcomes. Melissa also sat on the FPM Education Committee until it was disbanded in 2016 and is a member of the FPM Training and Accreditation Executive Committee (TAEC).