Rapid management team

Dr Caitlin Sheehan, Rapid Program Chair

In August 2021, Dr Caitlin Sheehan was appointed as the Rapid Program Chair, succeeding the founding Chair, Dr David Currow.

Caitlin has been a Staff Specialist in Palliative Medicine at Calvary and St George Hospitals in the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District since 2010. Her clinical interests include advanced cancer care, cardiac supportive care, pharmaceutical cannabis, and virtual palliative care.

Caitlin is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Australasian Chapter of Palliative Medicine. She is a conjoint lecturer at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). 

Since 2014, Caitlin has been a clinical researcher at Calvary Kogarah and site investigator for PaCCSC and CST clinical trials. She has proactively facilitated clinical trial participation across a range of trials investigating ways to improve the quality of life of people receiving palliative care and for better cancer symptom management.

Caitlin has led and collaborated with a number of teams to secure grants to fund and advance research into palliative care and has published 14 peer-reviewed articles. 

In addition to being the Rapid Program Medical Investigator, Caitlin is a member of the Cognitive and Neurological Symptom Node Subcommittee. She is also an executive member of the SPHERE Palliative Care Clinical Academic Group (PC-CAG). She has served as a member of the PaCCSC and CST Trial Management Committee and is a former member of the PaCCSC Scientific Committee. 

Caitlin is passionate about providing the best evidence-based care for patients at the end of life and enabling the research to inform best practice in clinical decision making. 

Dr Ross Drake, Rapid Paediatric Program Lead

Dr Ross Drake has been a Paediatrician and Specialist in Paediatric Palliative Care and Pain Medicine at Starship Child Health in Auckland since 2002 where he now leads both the Paediatric Palliative Care and Complex Pain Services. 

In his Fellowship training, Ross spent time with the Symptom Control Team at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London and the Pain and Palliative Care Service at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney where part of his training was devoted to the psychological management of children in chronic pain.

Dr Rayan Saleh Moussa, Acting PaCCSC/CST National Manager

Dr Rayan Saleh Moussa leads the national office team to implement both the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC) and Cancer Symptom Trials (CST) strategic and operational plans working closely with Chairs of the various committees, members, consumers, investigators and staff.

Rayan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Cancer Symptom Trials (CST) team. She was awarded her doctorate in cancer therapeutics in 2017 by the University of Sydney.

Rayan's postdoctoral research is focused on improving the preclinical to clinical pipeline through multidisciplinary translational research in cancer symptom therapeutics and interventions.

Associate Professor Matt Doogue

Matt Doogue is a clinical pharmacologist passionate about bringing clinical pharmacology principles to patient care. He is also an endocrinologist working in a busy acute general medicine service and an active member of the Department of Medicine at the University of Otago. His interests include adverse drug reactions and he was a founding member of the Rapid Program.

Dr Deidre Morgan

As an occupational therapist with 25 years clinical experience, Deidre has an in depth understanding of the public health system and the value and importance of clinical research that informs practical patient care. Her clinical and research focus is in palliative care and she has a particular interest in ways to optimise function at the end of life. Her PhD, completed in 2012, focused on the embodied experience of functional decline at the end of life and patient priorities at this time. In 2013 Deidre moved to Adelaide to take up a research fellow position with the Department of Health NBN telehealth project. Following this, she held a balanced position in the Occupational Therapy program for 3 years until her move to Palliative and Supportive Services in May 2017. Deidre topic coordinates the Master of Palliative care research topics, supporting students to conduct clinically relevant research. She is also the Senior Academic Integrity Officer for the College of Nursing and Health Services. 

Deidre's research interests focus factors that optimise function for people with advanced disease and ways to measure meaningful clinical gains in this area. Deidre is an inaugural member of the Flinders University Research Centre in Palliative Care, Death and Dying and the founding chair of Australian Allied Health in Palliative Care (AAHPC). She is also a clinical research member of the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC) (UTS). Deidre has research collaborations in the USA and Europe and is a member of the European Association for Palliative Care occupational therapy palliative care taskforce and research collaborative which aims to devleop an international research agenda to evaluate the effectiveness of palliative care OT interventions.

Professor Debra Rowett

Professor Debra Rowett is the Discipline Leader, Pharmacy External Relations, at the University of South Australia, and Director of the Drug and Therapeutics Information Service (DATIS), Southern Adelaide Local Health Network.
She was a member of the inaugural investigator team with the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC) and a Chief Investigator for the Rapid Program research network in palliative care.

Debra developed and implemented Advanced Practice Pharmacist roles in Palliative Care and has worked extensively in the area of Quality Use of Medicines. She has been actively involved in changes leading to improved access to medicines for palliative care.

Debra is a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, President of the Council of Pharmacy Schools of Australia and New Zealand, and a Director of Therapeutic Guidelines and Therapeutic Guidelines Foundation. 

Penny Tuffin

Penny is an Advanced Practice Pharmacist in Palliative Care and Pain Management. She is the Pharmacist Lead–Palliative Care for Western Australia Country Health Service in addition to having clinical roles with the Palliative Care Consultancy Team at Fiona Stanley Hospital and the Palliative Care Unit at Bethesda Hospital.

Penny is a member of the Western Australia Department of Health End of Life and Palliative Care Advisory Committee and COVID Clinical Leads Committee. She provides advice, education and mentoring for healthcare professionals and undergraduate students throughout Western Australia in pain management and palliative care.

Dr Wei Lee

Dr Wei Lee [opens external site] is a palliative care physician based in the northern districts of Sydney. He is passionate about palliative care research and teaching of symptom management. He is involved in various PaCCSC/CST studies in the Cognitive & Mood and Pain symptom nodes. 

Wei is undertaking a doctoral program at UTS exploring depression in the end-of-life setting. Wei is the recipient of the CST Emerging Trialist Awared 2022.

Yinyin Phyo, Rapid Program Coordinator

Yinyin Phyo is the IMPACCT Rapid Program and Rapid Paediatric Program Coordinator responsible for all aspects of the programs including site liaison, supporting principal investigators with the development,  implementation and coordination of all Rapid and Rapid paediatric series.

Yinyin manages the collation of Rapid data for reporting and dissemination of series outcomes, including preparation for submission of journal articles.