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.

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.

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.

Committee Member

Committee Member  

Committee Member

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.

Committee Member

Maria Sheehan

Andy McLachlan

Ross Proctor

Patricia Davidson

Simon Stewart