Epworth Health

Our Academic Lead

Prof Richard de Steiger

Professor Richard de Steiger is the Epworth Victor Smorgon Chair of Surgery - the University of Melbourne, Deputy Director of the Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry (AOANJRR), President of the International Society of Arthroplasty Registries (ISAR), member of the International Hip Society and on the steering committee of the Victorian Orthopaedic Trauma Outcomes Registry (VOTOR) and the Victorian Orthopaedic Research Trust (VORT).  Professor de Steiger is an Orthopaedic Surgeon with a special interest in hip and knee joint replacement and the management of adult hip disorders.  He is the Principal Investigator on several orthopaedic trials, and his current research interests include outcomes of joint replacement surgery, computer navigation and mechanisms involved in the cause of knee osteoarthritis.  Professor de Steiger has established collaborative research in the fields of clinical epidemiology and public health, bioengineering and basic science.  He is a member of the Commonwealth Government Department of Health and Aging Hip Prostheses Clinical Advisory Group and has previously been a member of the Medical Services Advisory Committee.  Professor de Steiger is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and he is a reviewer for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery, Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery and ACTA Orthopaedica.  He is actively involved in teaching at both a postgraduate and undergraduate level.

He has 58 publications (38 since 2011), 1333 lifetime citations, and his h-index (Scopus 02/2017) is 17. He has also given 214 international, national and state presentations; 106 of these in the last 5 years and many as invited faculty or presidential guest speaker.

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Key Research Areas

The principal research interests of the Department of Surgery at Epworth HealthCare are focused on musculoskeletal disease.  There are three broad areas of research; inflammatory mechanisms of knee osteoarthritis, biomechanics of healthy and replaced knee joints and health services and patient outcomes.

The Epworth Musculoskeletal Research Centre has been formed with access to on site laboratories. This has enabled synovial, bone and articular cartilage tissue collection for ongoing study in several areas including osteoarthritis research, prostate cancer linkage and articular cartilage biomechanical models.
Health services research in the musculoskeletal is an expanding area.   Our group has focused on knee and hip arthroscopy and looking at lifetime risk of joint replacement at a state, national and an international level.  Ongoing projects include determining osteoarthritis following sports injury and the burden of revision joint replacement surgery.  In collaboration with Professor Nilmini Wickramasinghe we have developed a group to look at machine learning and to develop intelligent risk detection methods to improve outcomes in hip and knee replacement. The Department of Surgery has an ongoing collaboration with Professor Mari Botti, investigating best practice for pain management following joint replacement and interventions for improving patient surgical experience with the use of multimedia applications.

An ARC Linkage Grant has helped build a world class gait laboratory and there are several projects currently under way investigating articular cartilage, gait in normal volunteers and gait changes following interventions with total knee arthroplasty.

Collaborators

Professor John Hamilton

Email:  jahami@unimelb.edu.au
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Associate Professor Andrew Cook

Email:  adcook@unimelb.edu.au
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Professor Marcus Pandy

Email:  pandym@unimelb.edu.au 
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Dr Hans Gray

Email:  hans.gray@unimelb.edu.au
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Professor Colin Royse

Email:  colin.royse@unimelb.edu.au
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Dr Ilana Ackerman

Email:  i.ackerman@unimelb.edu.au
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Dr Megan Bohensky

Email:  megan.bohensky@unimelb.edu.au
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Professor Mari Botti

Email:   mari.botti@deakin.edu.au

Professor Nilmini Wickramasinghe

Email:  nilmini.wickramasinghe@epworth.org.au

Dr Niall Corcoran

Email:  con@unimelb.edu.au
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Associate Professor Christopher Hovens

Email:  chovens@unimelb.edu.au
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Professor Stephen Graves

Email:  segraves@aoanjrr.org.au 

Professor Ian Harris

Email:  iharris@aoanjrr.org.au

Professor Philip Clarke

Email:  philip.clarke@unimelb.edu.au
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Dr An Duy Tran

Email:  an.tran@unimelb.edu.au
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Research Group

Research at EpworthHealth
Research Group Leader - Professor Richard de Steiger

Contact Us

Executive Assistant / Researcher to Professor Richard de Steiger

Diana Royce
Ph:   +61 3 9936 8054
Email : Diana.royce@epworth.org.au

Location:

Epworth Health Care,
Department of Surgery
185-187 Hoddle Street,
Richmond VIC 3121, Australia