University of Melbourne, Department of Surgery
Professor Helen O'Connell MD, FRACS, MMed, MBBS, FAICD AO is the President of USANZ (2023-2025). She was the first female Urologist in Australia and New Zealand, completing training in Melbourne in 1993 followed by a Fellowship in Female and Functional Urology in Houston, USA in 1994-5. Her doctoral studies in female pelvic anatomy have achieved international renown leading to significant conceptual changes in both medical and lay literature. Her higher degrees were conferred at the University of Melbourne where she became Professor in 2013 and Head of Department of Urology and Surgery in 2016.
In 2014 Professor O'Connell became a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, completing its diploma in 2011 whilst a director for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand. In 2019 she led a successful Australian Government bid to establish the Australasian Pelvic Floor Procedure Registry to improve the outcomes associated with mesh SUI and POP implantation and explantation procedures. It is a collaborative effort with Monash University Registries, the Australian Commission for Quality and Safety in Health Care, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and leading pelvic floor surgeons and consumers.
She has been Principal investigator on a large number of clinical trials for drugs and devices for overactive bladder, stress incontinence in men and women and benign prostatic hyperplasia. Her current clinical interests are native tissue pelvic floor repairs, minimally invasive approaches to pelvic floor mesh removal and benign prostate surgery.
In 2021 Professor O'Connell was named an Officer (AO) in the Order of Australia: For distinguished service to medical education, and to medicine, in the field of urology, as an academic and clinician, and to professional groups. The Canadian Journal of Urology commissioned her to write an autobiographical article for its Legends in Urology section
Disclosure information not submitted.
Sunday, April 30, 2023
4:40 PM – 5:00 PM CST