Dr Bruce Foster AM

Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgeon

2012 SA Senior Australian of the Year 

For the past 30 years, as a specialist in paediatric orthopaedics, Dr Bruce Foster has devoted his medical career to understanding the structure and function of bone growth. He and his team developed new treatment strategies for bone deformities and skeletal diseases in children that currently have no cure. His special interest in leg lengthening and spinal deformities has seen him practice all around the world. Currently Deputy Director of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, Bruce operates outreach clinics in the Northern Territory, Kangaroo Island and at the Flinders Medical Centre. Determined to find better, less painful ways to help straighten and lengthen the limbs of children affected by crippling growth problems, Bruce set up the Bone Growth Foundation in 1991 which funds research and treatment for a quarter of a million Australian children afflicted with bone impairments. Bruce has been instrumental in the trialling of an innovative internal limb lengthening procedure – the Fitbone – and is one of the few surgeons in the world able to fit this device.

Associate Professor Nicole Williams

Associate Professor Nicole Williams is a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon seeking to optimise outcomes for children and young people suffering musculoskeletal conditions and trauma. 

Associate Professor Peter Cundy

 Associate Professor Peter Cundy is an Orthopaedic Surgeon with 35 years of consultant experience at the WCH and was the Head of Orthopaedic Surgery for over 13 years. He is a past Examiner for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He sits on the Editorial Boards of specialist Orthopaedic Journals and has special research interests in orthopaedic disorders in children, paediatric trauma and metal ion release from prostheses. Peter has over 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Peter was an active leader in trauma management and spine surgery, as well as being innovative in safe surgery and cost efficiencies in health management. He also has a long history of volunteer work in the Solomon Islands, Samoa and Fiji. Peter has extensive Board experience comprising MIGA (Medical Defence Insurer) for nine years including Chair of the Claims Committee. He currently sits on the Advisory Committee for Medical Devices for the Federal Government TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration). He is on the Board of ACHA (Adelaide Community Healthcare Alliance) which manages three private hospitals in South Australia (Memorial, Ashford and Flinders Private). Peter completed an academic sabbatical at University College London / Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, UK for most of 2024 having retired from clinical practice in Australia. On weekends he competed in Historic Car Racing around England, using his 1934 MG which accompanied him from Australia. He returned to the UK in 2025 for more serious car racing.

Associate Professor Susan Neuhaus AM CSC

Susan Neuhaus AM CSC is a graduate of the University of Adelaide, a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and former Army officer. Susan is a member of the Section of Surgical History and has extensively published and presented over many years on historical topics, including to the Cowlishaw Symposium and Surgical News. Susan has been the recipient of both the RACS Lumley Exchange Fellowship – to undertake post Fellowship training at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London and the RACS Younger Fellows Leadership Exchange Scholarship – as Visiting Professor to the American Academic Surgeons Meeting, USA. In 2003-2004 Susan held a position as Reader at the Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Library in the United Kingdom. Susan is an appointed member of Council of the Australian War Memorial and Patron of the Virtual War Memorial Australia. Susan’s publications, on military and surgical history and the often-overlooked historical contributions of women, are recognised nationally and internationally. In 2012 Susan was the recipient of a ‘Saluting their Service’, Department of Veterans Affairs Grant for A History of Australian Medical Women; WWII, Vietnam and Peaceoperations and of an Australian Army History Unit Grant for A History of the Australian Army’s Female Medical Professionals – From the Western Front to Contemporary Operations. In 2014 Susan co-authored Not for Glory: a century of service by medical women to the Australian Army and its Allies which in 2018 was adapted by The Shift Theatre into the acclaimed play Hallowed Ground: Women Doctors at War. Susan’s recently released novel, The Surgeon of Royaumont, is based on the experience of Australian women doctors on the Western Front during World War I.

Professor Karen Lower

Karen has worked in medical education and research for over 30 years, including undertaking a postdoctoral Nuffield research fellowship and Lecturer position at the University of Oxford, where she taught her first medical students. Within her discipline area of human genetics, Karen’s research work has included identifying genes involved in inherited intellectual disability, exploring long range regulation of gene expression, and furthering our understanding of the role of epigenetics in disease. Karen has been at Flinders University since 2010, during which time she has held many educational leadership roles. As the Dean (Education) for the College of Medicine and Public Health, Karen is leading a team of dedicated and passionate educators to provide innovative and learner-centred educational opportunities for students in all areas of medicine and public health.

Associate Professor Gillian Farrell

Associate Professor Gillian Farrell is Head of Plastic Surgery in the Northern Territory and works as a breast reconstructive surgeon at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. She is an Associate Professor at Monash University in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and is on the Research committee of the Australian Breast Device Registry. She is on the Board of Avant Mutual and the Doctors Health Fund and is a member of the Australian Access to Breast Reconstruction Collaborative group. 

Professor Guy Maddern

Professor Guy Maddern is the RP Jepson Professor of Surgery at the University of Adelaide, Director of Research at the Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational Health Research at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Director, Surgical Research and Evaluation (incorporating ASERNIP-S) of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.  He was trained at the University of Adelaide and became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1989.  He has also published widely on new surgical techniques and their introduction into surgical practice and is the current chair of the ANZASM Audit of RACS.  He has over 700 publications in scientific journals.

TBC