Biography
Professor Karin Thursky is an infectious diseases physician and clinician-researcher who is both nationally and internationally recognised as a leader and pioneer of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) in Australia.
She is the Deputy Head of Infectious Diseases and the Implementation Stream Lead at the National Centre for Infections in Cancer (NCIC) at Peter Mac. Her proficiency in knowledge translation and implementation has led to several successful programs, including the development and implementation of an award-winning whole-of-hospital sepsis clinical pathway (‘Think sepsis.Act fast.’) at Peter Mac and Royal Melbourne Hospital.
She is also the director (CIA) of the National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship (NCAS), which is a health services research Centre of Excellence (CRE) that works across both human and animal health, and in the hospital, primary care, and aged care sectors. NCAS is directly driving the implementation of the National Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Strategy, meeting over 30 objectives of the Strategy.
She is a member of the AMS working party for Australian Commission on Quality and Safety in Healthcare (ACQSHC), and an expert advisor in the Commonwealth technical advisory group responsible for delivering the National AMR Strategy. She leads the National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey (NAPS), which is the key contributor to Australia’s national antimicrobial use and resistance surveillance program. She has extensive expertise in the development of national consensus guidelines. She is the clinical lead for a Better Care Victoria project focused on the implementation of this pathway across a number of health services in Victoria.
Karin has both clinical and research experience across a very wide range of areas, including adult and paediatric infectious diseases; clinical epidemiology;prevention and treatment of infections in the immunocompromised host; antimicrobial stewardship in human and animal health; computerised decision support; immunology and biomarkers; natural language processing; antifungal stewardship; allergy; sepsis; and health economics.
The quality and breadth of her largely investigator-driven research is supported by sustained publication in widely read peer-reviewed journals, including papers in leading infectious diseases journals (Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Emerging Infectious Disease), haematology and oncology journals (British Journal of Haematology, Haematologica, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Leukemia and Lymphoma), and informatics journals (Journal of Biomedical Informatics). Her original publications from 2001 to 2018 have been cited over 4000 times, including 8 publications with over 100 citations. She has published over 10 papers a year since 2010,with 20 papers published this year. She has co-authored two invited editorials on cancer infections for Journal of Clinical Oncology (IF 18) and Leukemia and Lymphoma, and was an invited author on international collaborative publications focused on developing core elements and workforce requirements for global antimicrobial stewardship programs
