Welcome to the Department of Paediatrics
The Department of Paediatrics delivers core education to medical students at The University of Melbourne to ensure every graduate has foundational knowledge of the health problems affecting children…wherever they may work. We deliver post-graduate education in core fields of need including our programs for Adolescent Health and Wellbeing and the always changing field of Genetic Counselling and Genomics for Health. We support hundreds of graduate research students through Honours and PhD programs, as well as their supervisors who work have impact from the bench in the laboratory, to our health system, to strong programs in Indigenous early childhood development, child disability, mental health, and global health, which aim to bring more equitable care and health for all.
We are the core education partner for The Royal Children’s Hospital and deliver innovative programs which support our paediatric workforce. At the same time, we reach out to children and their families through initiatives like the Teddy Bear Hospital – engaging thousands of health care students and academics alike.
Strategic Priorities
Enable a paediatric workforce: Deliver excellent education for Child and Adolescent health and wellbeing to learners from our students to staff on our Campus, across our state and beyond – generating a workforce pipeline for academic paediatrics.
Support health systems to learn: Enable a Learning Health System on the Melbourne Children’s Campus, through leadership, research, data, and systems that support research translation, innovation, and continual improvement to advance care for children and adolescents.
Contribute to our communities and region: Build capability for child and adolescent health through partnerships in our communities, including those of our First Nations, regionally in the Asia Pacific, and globally – to reduce inequity and improve outcomes in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.
History
In 1862, the University of Melbourne opened the first medical school to teach undergraduate medicine in the British Empire's southern dominions. By 1870, the first Melbourne Hospital for Sick Children (later known as The Children's Hospital) opened in Carlton with six beds. In 1900, the University of Melbourne invited the Children's Hospital to appoint a staff member to the Faculty of Medicine, and the Hospital chose Dr. William Snowball.
As the twentieth century progressed, paediatrics emerged as a medical discipline in Victoria, initially under the umbrella of mothers' and children's health. In the 1940s and 1950s, the University and the now-named Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) began to collaborate more closely. Eventually, a full-time Clinical Supervisor was appointed to oversee undergraduate teaching, and Mrs. Hilda Stevenson, Vice President of the Children's Hospital Board of Management, made a donation in 1959 to establish the first paediatrics chair (Stevenson Chair in Child Health).
The formal relationship between the University and the Hospital dates back over a century, and the Hospital gradually evolved from a charity hospital to a teaching hospital with a strong research profile. The Board of Research evolved into the RCH Research Foundation, which became the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (MCRI) in 1999.
Today, the Department of Paediatrics thrives as part of a tri-partnership between the University of Melbourne, Murdoch Research Institute, and Royal Children's Hospital, formally known as Melbourne Children's Campus.