While medical care brings benefits for many, there is accumulating evidence that unnecessary care is a growing problem. Not only does it fail to provide benefit and sometimes causes harm to the recipients of that care, it also diverts scarce resources away from those that need it most.
Professor Rachelle Buchbinder AO's research has focused on ways of optimising care for people with arthritis and other common musculoskeletal conditions such as low back pain; landmark trials examining treatments accepted into practice before their proper evaluation; and ways of more rapidly translating new evidence into practice as soon as it emerges.
About the Speaker:
Professor Rachelle Buchbinder AO, FAHMS is an Australian NHMRC Investigator Fellow. She has been the Director of the Monash-Cabrini Department of Musculoskeletal Health and Clinical Epidemiology since its inception in 2001 and a Professor in the Monash University Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine since 2007. She is a rheumatologist and clinical epidemiologist who combines clinical practice with research in a wide range of multidisciplinary projects relating to arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions.
Professor Buchbinder recently chaired the steering group for The Lancet Low Back Pain Series, a series of three papers published in March 2018 that drew attention to the urgent need for action to reduce the current and projected disease burden from low back pain. In particular it outlined the epidemic of low value care for low back pain across the world and identified promising solutions.
Professor Rachelle Buchbinder is the 2022 recipient of the Royal Society of Victoria’s Medal for Excellence in Scientific Research, awarded following her lecture by Laureate Professor Peter Doherty AC, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Victoria.
