In May, St Vincent’s Hospital neurologist, Dr Joel Maamary, was named the inaugural recipient of the JW & M Cunningham Foundation Clinical Exchange in Movement Disorders through the newly established St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney-American Australian Association International Exchange Program.
As an international exchange scholarship recipient, Dr Maamary received a grant of USD$40,000 to support his travel to the US for a six month research project at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. In a further effort to strengthen international collaborative relationships between these centres, Dr Maamary will commence work on a multi-national, multi-centre collaboration that aims to characterise differences in young onset monogenic Parkinson’s disease. By learning skills in sensing modalities, Dr Maamary will also return with expertise and specialised knowledge to be implemented amongst a local Australian population at St Vincent’s Hospital, further strengthening St Vincent’s as an international leader in neuromodulation.
Established in 2023 through the Foundation, the St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney-American Australian Association International Exchange Program is a bidirectional (AUS-USA, USA-AUS) clinical exchange program supporting one graduate level clinician per year from St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney (doctor, nurse or translational research fellow), and one graduate level clinician per year from the US. Participants will travel to each other’s country to engage in immersive research in specialty clinical areas.
Funded through the generous philanthropy of the JW & M Cunningham Foundation, the Delta Goodrem Foundation, the late Valerie McKenzie, and Nick Politis AM and the Politis Family, the program began in January this year. It includes three exchanges in the areas of movement disorders and neurosciences, nursing in cellular therapies and stem cell transplant, and pain management. In 2025, an additional two exchanges will be added to the program in theranostics and structural heart and cardiac research.
If you would like to know more about the exchange program, please email the Foundation at supportstvincents@svha.org.au