2009 'Mastering the Master Gland'
A full morning of pituitary presentations was appreciated by our members, patients and their families at St Vincents Hospital, Fitzroy on Saturday 7th November.
The speakers covered a variety of topics, addressing different aspects of managing and living with a pituitary condition for both adults and children. These specialist speakers generously gave up a part of their precious weekend to provide our audience with quality presentations and the opportunity to ask questions in the Q&A session.
Our sincere thanks go to:
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Dr. Warrick Inder who spoke at length about adult GH replacement
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Dr. Carmela Caputo, understanding the gland and troublesome non-functioning macroadenomas, their management and treatments
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Dr. Christina Jang, Prolactinoma treatments and their effects including medication tolerance
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Dr. Michele O’Connell, Growth and development of boys and girls with hypopituitarism, including understanding “normal growth” patterns in children
Dr. Carmela Caputo & Dr. Michele O’Connell Dr. Warrick Inder & Dr. Christina Jang
Our new VIC State Coordinator Kellie Dines with APF Chairperson Noel Hickey
2008 Educational Seminar
The APF was very grateful to have such fantastic guest speakers at our 2008 Melbourne Seminar. We started the day off with Associate Professor Gavin Fabinyi who spoke about pituitary surgery. He was aided by a slide presentation which was extremely informative especially for the vast majority of the audience who had either had surgery or were scheduled to. He was later joined by Dr Niki Maartens who spoke about advances in Pituitary surgery. Again, this was such a fantastic insight into what we can expect over the coming years with regards to surgery. Dr Maartens even went so far as to say that some day, in the future, pituitary tumours could be treated by medication alone.
We then had Dr Margaret Zacharin speak about Paediatric Endocrinology. Dr Zacharin advised us of the various Pituitary illnesses in children and also how treatment for brain tumours can affect the Pituitary gland.
This was followed by Andrea Dwyer, a Life Coach, who spoke about implementing basic strategies in our lives to help manage and deal with illness on an everyday basis. Andrea got the audience involved with interactive exercises and lots of questions. I think the vast majority got a lot from this and we certainly found out a bit about the person sitting next to us (especially all the red wine drinkers!!).
Dr. Walter Plewhe spoke about Pituitary illnesses and Endocrinology in general. He discussed the various illnesses and how these are diagnosed. Dr Plewhe then spoke about treatment and management. Again this was an incredibly informative presentation and there were certainly a lot of questions at the conclusion.
Our last speaker of the day was Dr Emma Guymer who is a Consultant Rheumatologist. Dr Guymer spoke about all our aches and pains and how we can best cope with them. We are all obviously feeling a little achy as there were a lot of questions for Dr Guymer at the conclusion of her talk!
All in all, I thought the day was a great success and I received a lot of great feedback. I would especially like to thank everyone who spoke on the day and took time out from their weekend. I would also like to thank the Epworth Hospital, in particular Andy and Graeme. It was a great day and I am looking forward to next year’s seminar.
2001 APF Seminar
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