Faculty
Benjamin East
Dr. Benjamin East is an Orthopaedic Surgeon who specialises in upper limb conditions and treatment. Dr. East regularly takes complex upper limb referrals from all over the Hunter New England Health district and works routinely with high level sporting teams, including the NRL Newcastle Knights. Originally training as a Biomechanical engineer, Dr. East’s interest in medicine and orthopaedics developed while working with Leprosy patients in South India.
Dr. East is actively involved in Orthopaedic Outreach; Orthopaedic design, teaching and research. Dr. East has been involved as a design surgeon for a number of orthopaedic implants – a work which is ongoing. He is a director of the Newcastle Orthopaedic Research Institute (NORI). Teaching and speaking at national and international meetings and courses. He remains interested in the implementation of cutting edge engineering technology, research and the application of advances in medicine and surgery to patient care.
Sharron Flahive
Dr Sharron Flahive is a Specialist Sports Medicine consultant having gained Fellowship of the Australasian College of Sport & Exercise Physicians in 2004 and being awarded the college medal for highest achievement in her fellowship exams. She was also the first female Sports Physician to be appointed to a professional rugby union team in 1999 when she was appointed as the NSW Waratahs Chief Medical Officer. She retained this role with the NSW Waratahs since the date of that appointment until the end of season in 2019, looking after the Team for 20 years! NSWRU honoured this role in 2020 by awarding Sharron life membership.Jeff Hughes
Dr Hughes specialises in shoulder and elbow reconstruction, arthroscopy and joint arthroplasty. His practice functions as a tertiary referral base for difficult elbow and shoulder problems from New South Wales and beyond. Dr Hughes is a regularly invited speaker at shoulder and elbow conferences. He is an annual tutor at the Mayo Clinic Elbow Course in the USA and the Australian/Asian/New Zealand tutor for the Coonrad Morrey Elbow Arthroplasty, of which there are only 3 in the world.
Dr Hughes has published articles with Prof Sonnabend, Dr Allan Young and others on management of displaced proximal humerus fractures; internal fixation of symptomatic os acromiale; antibiotic prophylaxis in elbow surgery; distal clavicular excision; the clinical role of shoulder ultrasound and the interosseous membrane in radio-ulnar dissociation.
Brian Kim
Brian Kim is a physiotherapist and PhD candidate at the Kolling Institute where he applies deep learning to MRI-based muscle imaging. His work focuses on the use of deep learning architectures to quantify muscle composition and intramyocellular lipids on MRI.He developed a deep learning-based segmentation tool for shoulder muscles on chemical shift encoding MRI which has now expanded to become a contrast-agnostic tool on T1, T2, PD and Dixon MRI.
As he completes his PhD, Brian aims to advance our understanding of MRI biomarkers for monitoring the rotator cuff and deltoid quality neuromuscular disorders.