Meet a member - Dr Helena Franco
There are records of every child at Boston Children’s Hospital who has undergone significant surgery for hip abnormalities, and AMA Queensland member Dr Helena Franco is midway through a two-year Masters degree at Harvard University examining their outcomes.
Dr Franco, who is aiming to become an orthopaedic surgeon, has been awarded a Menzies scholarship and an American-Australian Association Scholarship for her thesis, looking at the socio-demographic factors that have influenced children who have acetabular dysplasia and have undergone a periacetabular osteotomy procedure.
“It's a condition that newborns and young children develop,” Dr Franco, a past vice chair of AMA Queensland’s Committee of Doctors in Training, says.
“What I’m looking at is the factors that delay or prevent children from accessing specialised care through the paediatric orthopaedic service.
“If children come from a low socio-demographic area, if they live remotely from the city, or English isn’t the care givers’ primary language – do any of those factors mean that children are diagnosed later or receive delayed specialist attention, and does that delay worsen the severity of their condition?
“Periacetabular osteotomy is a significant operation, and the second part of my thesis is whether any of those socio-demographic or economic factors influence the post-operative outcomes for children who have this operation.”
Dr Franco is using a database at Boston Children's Hospital of every child who has undergone periacetabular osteotomy since the 1980s.
“Acetabular dysplasia is the most common cause of early arthritis, which may require a total hip replacement at a relatively early age. If you can improve the pathway towards diagnosis and treatment, this will hopefully have a significant improvement in their quality of life, pain and mobility for the rest of their life, and allow them to live a more comfortable and active life.”
Dr Franco became involved with AMA Queensland for three reasons - the opportunity to continue developing leadership skills, the network and the friendships that it provides, and the ability to be involved in broader issues in the medical system in Queensland.
“I was quite involved in student organisations as a medical student, and then once I graduated, it was really nice to be able to continue developing those leadership skills through CDT,” she said.
“Having such a strong network of junior doctors is important. I've worked in three different hospitals and it's really nice having friends outside the department that you work in. And then also staying aware of the issues that are broader than your day to day clinical practice, I've always found really interesting.