Leonie Short is a Dental Practitioner and Dental Therapist. She started working as a dental therapist in Rural NSW and then moved into being an academic and researcher. Through her career, Leonie has worked at 6 universities across New South Wales and Queensland, and remaining community focused.
Prior to starting her business, Leonie, was a consumer advocate in the fields of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, substance abuse before concentrating on oral health. Her passion led her to start her business.
Seniors Dental Care Australia focuses on oral health care training and education for workers in the aged home care and disability sectors. These are the whole range of health workers from carers, enrolled nurses, registered nurses, allied health practitioners and general practitioners recognising the need to improve oral health care. Leonie talks about the passion and attention to delivering oral health care teachings.
As a hands on practitioner, Leonie typically delivers training in person and through a shift pattern at seniors or disability support facilities, and also via online. She feels in person and on site delivery is more engaging and raises confidence levels in carers.
Over the past 8 years Leonie has encountered smelly mouths, rotted teeth, infected gums and dirty dentures. Her aims are for people to have nice healthy clean mouths, to be able to smile, to talk, to taste and to eat.
Without a clean mouth, cases of aspiration pneumonia and infected endocarditis increase leading to hospitalisation and death. Leonie talks about a case in the UK of ill-fitting dentures being untreated, compounded by COVID precautions to oral examination leading to the patient choking on her dentures and dying.
Leonie’s mission is to have improved oral health experiences and outcomes, however she recognises, the health system really needs to work hard to make it happen and for people to understand why it needs to be a priority.
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Generosity of spirit in teaching
The Ramaciotti Medal for Excellence is considered one of the most prestigious awards in biomedical research in Australia and is highly sought after by researchers in the field.
In 2022, Professor Matthew Kiernan was the recipient of the Ramaciotti Medal for Excellence and the associated $50,000 award.
Australian Health Journal spoke with Professor Kiernan to hear about his journey in medicine and science to try and uncover and understand diseases and his generosity of spirit to pass on what he has learnt.
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Indigenous physio leadership
On the eve of NAIDOC week 2023, Australian Health Journal met with Scott Willis, the National President of the Australian Physiotherapy Association, a proud Palawa man and the first Indigenous President of the Australian health peak body.
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Cardiovascular Disease Risk Guidance and Calculator get long overdue update
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is responsible for significant morbidity and premature mortality in Australia. Ischaemic heart disease was the leading cause of death in 2020 and cerebrovascular disease was the third most common cause of death.
As the first major update to Australian CVD risk assessment guidelines in over a decade, the 2023 Australian Guideline for assessing and managing cardiovascular disease risk and associated Aus CVD Risk Calculator reflect the latest evidence on assessing, communicating, and managing CVD risk. Developed using Australian-specific data and the latest evidence, it supersedes the 2012 Guidelines for the management of absolute cardiovascular disease risk.
