Building stronger vascular access research collaborations with Japan

On Monday 20th May, several of the AVATAR team, including Prof Claire Rickard, Dr Gillian Ray-Barruel, Assoc Prof Amanda Ullman, Jessica Schults , and Dr Vineet Chopra (University of Michigan) met with Dr Hideto Yasuda from Kameda General Hospital, Chiba, and Keio University School of Medicine, Japan. Dr Yasuda is an emergency and critical care physician and researcher with a keen desire to improve the outcomes for patients with peripheral vascular access.

Dr Yasuda was introduced to the work of the AVATAR group by Dr Peter Carr. Led by Dr Yasuda, at that time based at Red Cross Musashino Hospital, his was one of 4 Japanese hospitals that participated in the OMG study (https://bit.ly/2H8zsGe). Inspired by this research, Dr Yasuda decided to focus his research efforts on peripheral intravenous catheter complications.

Dr Yasuda visited Australia to meet the AVATAR team and discuss his plans for a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship based at Griffith University from April 2020. During his fellowship, Dr Yasuda will analyse data from 23 intensive care units in Japan on the effects of intravenous medications on peripheral veins.

While in Brisbane, Dr Yasuda, his wife and three children took time out to visit some popular tourist destinations, including Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

We look forward to building stronger research collaborations with Dr Yasuda and his team of researchers in improving vascular access outcomes for patients everywhere.