Laura Sumners, FRACP | Chair

Laura works as a Paediatric Emergency Physician and Director of Paediatric Education at Queensland Children's Hospital in Brisbane, Queensland. She has special interests in education, mentoring, and patient experience. She is an APLS instructor and a mum of two boys who keep her busy, constantly juggling the challenges of parenting and work, plus finding some time for herself and exercise.

Michelle Thompson, FRACP | Deputy Chair

Michelle is a Paediatric Emergency Physician at the Queensland Children’s Hospital in Brisbane. She has held roles overseeing the education and training pathways for trainees of both the RACP and ACEM streams, as the Director of Emergency Medicine Training, and is currently the Clinical Director of the Emergency Department. She is interested in medical education, systems thinking, and intersectionality in the health context. Her time outside of work is full between her two primary school-aged children, a small menagerie of pets, and indulging in her passions of sewing and creating and listening to true crime podcasts (preferably at the same time!).

Valerie Astle, FACEM

Valerie is a FACEM PEM, originally from England but has completed all her emergency and paediatric training in NSW and WA. She is on the ACEM PEM Network and also co-founded the WA PEM Network. She has a passion for improving the standards of education and training for paediatric emergency medicine, for staff at metro and rural sites.

Dr Chloe-Maryse Baxter, FRACP

Chloe holds FRACP in General Paediatrics and is an advanced trainee in Paediatric Emergency Medicine. She completed her undergraduate degree in the UK, as well as a Master's in Health Professions Education at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and an MSc in Paediatric Emergency Medicine at Edinburgh University. Chloe finished her postgraduate paediatric training in the UK, New South Wales, and Victoria. She is currently a member of the RACP Education Committee and the Curriculum Advisory Group.

Hana Burns

Hana is a first-year advanced trainee in Paediatric Emergency Medicine. She is completing her training part-time so that she can balance being with her young family with the demands of work. She completed Graduate Entry Medicine in 2013 at the University of Birmingham and practised medicine for 3 years in the UK. In 2015 she undertook a clinical teaching year and completed a certificate in medical education, after which she moved to South Australia to work in the field of Paediatric Medicine. She feels lucky to say she loves her job and applied to the Curriculum Review Group so that they can make the foundations of training the best they can be.

Dr Jin Lim

Lucy Johnston, FRACP

Lucy holds FRACP for General Paediatrics. She will complete her Paediatric Emergency Medicine fellowship by August 2024. She is currently working in the Sydney Children's Hospital Emergency Department as a Provisional Fellow.

Dr Tessa Smith

Bronwyn Turner, FRACP

Bronwyn completed RACP PEM training in 2019 in Aotearoa New Zealand and then worked as a consultant before returning to further ED training under ACEM. She is currently a locum paediatrician. She has worked in paediatric retrieval in Australia. She has been a liaison between general paediatrics and the mixed emergency department in a rural centre during the COVID pandemic. She was involved in protocol development from 2020–2021 and paediatric emergency education in the past 2 years.

Sarah Watson, FRACP

Sarah is based in beautiful Darwin, NT, lucky enough to be able to work in General Paediatrics, Paediatric, and General Emergency Medicine on Larrakia country. She has roots well established in the Top End after some time in SA and WA for training. She loves the diversity of environments, people, and weather, and is proud to call it home.