Board of Directors

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President

James McVeigh
Sydney, Australia

CCCert, BHSc (Nurs) & Masters Clinical Nursing
Authorised Nurse Practitioner

James is originally from Belfast in Northern Ireland and immigrated to Australia in 1992. He settled in Sydney and has specialized in the field of cardiac nursing, working in a variety of positions in the clinical and academic arenas.

In March 2003, he was authorized as a Nurse Practitioner (NP)- High dependency nursing (Coronary Care/Cardiology) and continues to enjoy the challenge of working in the heart failure service and establishing the role of the NP.

James is currently employed at the Prince of Wales hospital in Sydney, Australia. In his current role he is responsible for the coordination of the heart failure service that provides transitional care from the hospital to the home.

Jim McVeigh

Vice-President

Phillip Newton
Sydney, Australia

Professor Phillip Newton is Professor and Director of the Nursing Research Centre at Western Sydney University and Western Sydney Local Health District. As a registered nurse with a strong academic track record, Professor Newton’s program of research demonstrates a strong interdisciplinary focus and an emphasis on the links between clinical research and translation into the health service. He has a distinguished and consistent record of obtaining competitive funding at the highest level. In total, he has been awarded over $3 million in support as a Chief Investigator from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Heart Foundation NSW Cardiovascular Research Network; Department of Health & Ageing and the Australian Research Council. He has been elected a Fellow of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (FCSANZ) American Heart Association (FAHA) and the European Society of Cardiology (FESC).

The main focus of his research has been on risk factor modification and symptom management. His PhD and his early post-doctoral work investigated interventions to improve symptoms and improve self-management. Prof Newton is now leading a team investigating the impact of frailty on people with chronic heart failure as well as people referred for solid organ transplantation. He is a senior investigator of the Heart Failure Snapshot study, the largest point prevalence study of acute heart failure and investigation of clinical variation across institutions in Australia.

Secretary

Aaron Conway
Brisbane, Australia

Aaron is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology and a Registered Nurse at the Cardiac Catheter Theatres, The Wesley Hospital. Aaron has been a cardiac nurse for 10 years. His primary area of research is in nurse-administered procedural sedation and analgesia. His research in this field is currently funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council Early Career Fellowship. Aaron holds a Bachelor of Nursing with First Class Honours and a PhD from Australian Catholic University.

Aaron Conway

Treasurer

Karen Sanders
Melbourne, Australia

Karen is an acute Cardiac Nurse Practitioner at Austin Health. Karen’s cardiac nursing experience commenced in the era of the “Datascope” 82 IABP machine & the ISIS trials and encompasses various clinical, managerial, educational and project roles at the Royal Melbourne The Alfred and the Austin Hospitals in Melbourne over the ensuing 3 decades.

Membership of several nursing and cardiac organisations includes the ACNC since its inaugural meeting in 2007, and committee membership since 2009. Karen took over the ACNC Treasurer role in 2015.

Karen Sanders

Committee Member

Maria Sheehan
Sydney, Australia

Maria has been in acute Cardiac Nursing for the majority of her nursing career. In the early 2000s she moved into Cardiac Rehabilitation & Cardiac Chronic Care, where she established a heart failure service. Maria has been a Cardiac Nurse Practitioner for five years in Cardiac Rehab & Chronic Care, after completing a Masters in Nursing Practice (NP). Maria is passionate about providing patients' with knowledge and skills to understand and manage their condition/s. She has been a member of the ACNC for 8 years. Maria spends her downtime with her other passion - riding her Ducati Monster.

Maria Sheehan

Committee Member

Ross Proctor
Sydney, Australia

Ross currently works as the Cardiology Clinical Nurse Consultant at Royal North Shore Hospital. Ross has more than 25 years experience in cardiac nursing across a variety of tertiary hospitals. Ross was employed as Nurse Educator for six years co-ordinating the post grad cardiac nursing course at The Australian College of Nursing. He lectures for Ausmed Conferences and he is an advanced life support instructor with the Australian Resuscitation Council. Ross is a founding member and past President of the Australasian Cardiovascular Nursing College.

ross (1)

Committee Member

Caleb Ferguson
Sydney, Australia

Dr Caleb Ferguson RN PhD is a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney. Caleb has over a decade of experience as a Registered Nurse in acute stroke. His program of research focused on patient centred approaches to the management of atrial fibrillation and stroke prevention in individuals with cardiovascular disease. Dr Ferguson has authored a number of academic publications including peer reviewed journal articles, book chapters and editorials for nursing and cardiovascular journals. He is an Editor for Contemporary Nurse and an Editorial Board member of the Journal of Clinical Nursing. Since 2012, Dr Ferguson has been an Ambassador for the Stroke Foundation where he provides community talks on stroke prevention. He has been involved in the development of national clinical guidelines including the 2017 Stroke Foundation Acute Clinical Management Guideline update and the Heart Foundation’s Management of Atrial Fibrillation Guideline. He is also an executive committee member of the Cardiovascular Nursing Council of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand.

Caleb Ferguson

Committee Member

Jeroen Hendriks
Adelaide, Australia

RN, PhD, FESC, FCSANZ

Dr Jeroen Hendriks is an Academic Nurse and Health Scientist who received his PhD in 2013 at Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, the Netherlands. His doctoral studies focused on developing Integrated Care in terms of specialised Arial Fibrillation clinics and proving the role of specialised nurses to manage these clinics.

In 2015 he took up the Derek Frewin Lectureship at the Centre for Heart Rhythm Disorders, University of Adelaide and Royal Adelaide Hospital. Here he is responsible for developing the Academic Nursing Program in Atrial Fibrillation. His program of research focusses on integrated care management in atrial fibrillation and related cardiovascular disease, as well as preparing and redesigning practices for such an approach. Jeroen holds an Early Career Fellowship from the Australian Heart Foundation.

Jeroen is the Vice-President of the Australian Cardiovascular Health and Rehabilitation Association (ACRA) in South Australia and Northern Territory and is the Past-President of the Dutch Society for Cardiovascular Nurses and the Past Communication Officer and board member of the Council for Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions (CCNAP) within the European Society of Cardiology.

Jeroen Hendriks

Committee Member

Julee McDonagh
Sydney, Australia

Julee graduated with a Bachelor of Nursing in 2008 from Southern Cross University, and has since completed postgraduate course work study in Acute Care, and was awarded a Masters in Advanced Nursing in 2013 from the University of Technology Sydney. With nearly a decade of experience as a Registered Nurse, Julee has specialised in the field of cardiology, with a particular focus in caring for individuals with heart failure. She also has experience working in cardiothoracic intensive care and heart failure research and is currently completing a PhD focusing on the assessment of frailty in individuals with heart failure.

Julee McDonagh