Editor in Chief
Dr Andy Robertson – Western Australian Department of Health (WA Health)
Dr Andrew (Andy) Robertson CSC, PSM, MB BS, Grad. Dip. OHS, MPH, MHSM, FAFPHM, FRACMA, served as a full-time medical officer with the Royal Australian Navy from 1984 until 2003. A public health physician and medical administrator, he has served in various ships and establishments in Australia and overseas. He completed three tours to Iraq with Operation Blazer, including three months as the Chief Inspector of the Biological Weapons Monitoring Group in 1996. In October 2003, he took up the position of the Director, Disaster Preparedness and Management in WA Health, a position that was integrated into his Divisional Director’s role prior to his current role. In December 2004, he led the Australian Medical Relief team into the Maldives post tsunami, and has subsequently managed WA Health’s response to the 2005 Bali Bombing, its early preparations for a potential influenza pandemic, led the WA Health team into Indonesia after the Yogyakarta earthquakes in June 2006, and was involved in the responses to the Fukushima nuclear incident in 2011 and the Nepal earthquake in 2015. Dr Robertson is currently the Director, Disaster Management and Deputy Chief Health Officer within the Public Health Division in WA Health. He remains active in the Naval Health Reserves.
Deputy Editor in Chief
Martin Richardson
Editorial Board Members
Maj Gen Prof Dr Mohd Zin Bidin (Ret’d) – Vice Chancellor, University College Shahputra, Malaysia
MD MPH MScCTM MScEBM FACTM FAOEMM FFTM FPHMM FFOM AM DTM&H DISM DipSpMed DipAeroMed psc
Dr Zin was commissioned as a Medical Officer in the Malaysian Armed Forces in 1983. A Public Health Physician and Medical Administrator, he has served in various establishments in the Army, Navy and Air Force. He attended courses in Aerospace Medicine, Diving Medicine, Tropical Medicine, Combat Trauma Life Support and the Armed Forces Staff College. He was previously the Director of Health of the Malaysian Armed Forces Health Services and Founding Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Defence Health, National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM).
Dr Zin was a member of the Scientific Council of the International Committee of Military Medicine and the Director General of the World Congress of Military Medicine in 2009.
Brig Anne Campbell – former DG NZ Defence Medical Services, Medical Advisor New Zealand Veterans’ Affairs
Ian de Terte – PhD, PGDipClinPsyc – Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology
Brief Biography: Dr de Terte is a senior lecturer (above the bar) in clinical psychology (US equivalent: Associate Professor) at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand. Dr de Terte’s research interests are psychological resilience; posttraumatic mental health/posttraumatic stress disorder; occupational mental health, and performance enhancement. The main context he investigates these research interests are with police officers, military personnel, or professional sports players. Currently, his main research interest is the psychological resilience displayed by workers in high-risk occupations who are routinely exposed to traumatic events. He views psychological resilience from a multidimensional and multitheoretical perspective that includes the constructs of optimism, social support, self-care, posttraumatic growth, wellbeing, prevention strategies, motivation, stigma, sports participation, self-belief, humour, values, humility, self-compassion, mental toughness, coping behaviours, physical exercise, and survival behaviour. However, he believes that his view of psychological resilience is directly transferable to other contexts. He is also interested in techniques that will enhance an individual’s psychological resilience such as mindfulness, mental imagery, and behavioural techniques. The research frameworks that he utilises are single-case design, moderation/mediation analysis, meta-analysis, and theoretical viewpoints. Dr de Terte has 27 academic publications, 57 academic presentations, and obtained NZ$314,571.67 in research funding. He is on seven editorial boards of academic journals and the member of seven professional bodies. Dr de Terte’s clinical interests are directly transferable from his research interests. Dr de Terte has been fortunate to be involved in clinical or research work in some remote locations such as Phuket, Pitcairn Island, and Dubai. In his “previous career” he was a police detective with the New Zealand Police, and he played representative rugby for Wellington, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand Combined Services, and the New Zealand Police. He is married and has five children.
CDRE Michael Dowsett
Dr Helen Kelsall – Senior Research Fellow, Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health (MonCOEH), Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University
Dr Helen Kelsall MB BS, MPH, MHlthSc, PhD, FAFPHM is a public health physician / epidemiologist who has been active in veteran health research since 2000. Helen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University. She was an investigator on the Australian Gulf War Veterans’ Health Study 2000-2003 and the Gulf War Veterans’ Health Follow Up Health Study 2011-2012 and received her PhD (Epidemiology) in 2005 for “Respiratory and neurological health, symptoms, medical conditions and chronic fatigue syndrome in Australian Gulf War veterans” and was awarded the Monash University Vice-Chancellor’s Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence in 2005. Further research includes several follow up studies using the baseline 2000-2003 study data, systematic reviews and meta-analyses of psychological disorders, multisystem illness and chronic fatigue in Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans and a US Australian Joint Research Effort: Comparative Literature Review. She is an Investigator in the Transition and Wellbeing Research Program. Helen is active in supervising doctoral and other students in veteran health epidemiological research. Her veteran health research interests include physical health outcomes including musculoskeletal disorders, the relationship between physical and psychological health, relationship between exposures and health effects, multisymptom illness, record linkage and its use in research, epidemiological studies, and systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Helen has over 45 publications in peer reviewed journals, has presented widely on veteran health research at national and international conferences, and reviews for international journals. Helen was a member of the AMMA Conference Organising and Scientific Program Committee in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Other professional roles include membership of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Ethics Committee since 2010 and roles in the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine.
COL Prof Peter Leggat, AM – Deputy Dean, College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences, Division of Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University, Australia
MD, PhD, DrPH, FAFPHM, FFPH RCP(UK), FPHAA, FACAsM, FACTM, FACRRM, FFTM RCPS(Glasg), FFTM FEWM ACTM, FISTM, FSIA, FACE, FRGS, FRAS, FAICD, Hon. FFPM RCP(UK), Hon. FACTM, Hon. FFTM ACTM, ChOHSP joined the Australian Regular Army in 1987. He was posted to various units, including the historic 2 Field Ambulance in Townsville. He has served abroad in Thailand attached to the Australian Embassy, Bangkok, in 1990 and in East Timor in 2000. Colonel Leggat is currently serving in the Army Reserve with the 3rd Health Support Battalion and has been the nominee of the Head, Australian Defence Health Service, on the Board of the Journal of Military and Veterans’ Health. He is also a reviewer for Military Medicine and holds Editorial Board appointments on several other journals, including Industrial Health (Editor) and Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health (Consulting Editor). He is a Professor and Head of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and Deputy Dean of College, College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences, Division of Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University (JCU), Townsville. For more than 20 years, he has also been a civilian Visiting Medical Officer for various military units, including Lavarack Barracks Medical Centre and 5 Aviation Regiment. Professor Leggat holds board appointments with various organisations, including the JCU Council, the International Society of Travel Medicine (Secretary-Treasurer), The Australasian College of Tropical Medicine (President), and the Australasian College of Aerospace Medicine (Dean of Education), as well as being the National Director of Training for St John Ambulance Australia. A former Fulbright Scholar, he has published more than 500 papers in professional journals and more than 90 chapters in textbooks. He has also edited or co-edited more than 20 monographs and textbooks and presented more than 350 papers at national and international meetings. He was admitted as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2013 for significant service to medicine and promoted as Commander of the Order of St John in 2016.
Benjamin Mackie RN, BN (Dist), Grad Dip (ICN), MN – Lecturer of Nursing, University of Southern Queensland
Ben is a Lecturer of Nursing at the University of the Sunshine Coast and committee member of the Australian College of Critical Care Nurses (ACCCN), Queensland Branch. With specialist qualifications in critical care and disaster management, Ben was an invited speaker at the World Congress for Critical Care Nursing in April, 2016. He is currently completing his PhD at Griffith University and is focused on research promoting Patient and Family Centred Care in hospitals and interventions to enhance team performance. Ben is a peer reviewer for a number of nursing and health journals. Ben contributes more broadly to the profession and formally mentors several undergraduate nursing students and is an assessor of BN programs for ANMAC. He has published several peer reviewed journal articles , and is a reserve Nursing Officer with over a decade of military experience serving in austere environments.
Tyler C Smith, MS, PhD – Associate Professor and Chair, Program Lead MS Health and Life Science Analytics, Director Health Science Research Center, Department of Community Health, School of Health and Human Services, National University, San Diego, CA
Dr. Smith received a BS in mathematics/statistics from California State University, Chico; MS in statistics from the University of Kentucky; and PhD in epidemiology from the University of California, San Diego. He was previously the Department Head and Director of the Deployment Health Research Center, at the Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) in San Diego. He began work at NHRC in the mid 90’s with a focused research effort on the health of 1991 Gulf War Veterans. His initial duties were to access, maintain, and analyze large DoD inpatient, outpatient, and vaccine databases to investigate health outcomes of 1991 Gulf War Veterans. Other duties included design, development, fielding, and analyzing survey studies such as the Seabee Health Study and a complementary and alternative medicine study of Navy personnel. Collaborations with VA researchers at that time included several projects utilizing the VA and DoD Gulf War Health registry data. In the late 90’s his duties shifted to focus on designing, developing, and fielding the Millennium Cohort Study, a DoD-sponsored longitudinal survey assessment of military service personnel and veterans from all services. Through the early stages of the Millennium Cohort Study, duties focused on (e)mail invitation contact algorithms for both tri-service and retired personnel, data validation, data reliability, and establishing a foundation for understanding the inferential capability of this large prospective study. Later duties centered around management and other Principal Investigator duties. Analyses shifted from cross-sectional to prospectively designed studies evaluating pre and post deployment health. This rigorous design allowed for the assessment of baseline characteristics prior to exposures in theater and through the observation of disease incidence. Studies linked these longitudinal data to electronic vaccine, inpatient, ambulatory, pharmaceutical, personnel, occupation, exposure, mortality, and deployment data to complete analyses focused on PTSD, depression, suicide, alcohol misuse, tobacco use, sleep disorders, hypertension, diabetes, and respiratory disease among others relevant to military health. These efforts have culminated in 130 peer-reviewed publications in major scientific journals including JAMA, BMJ, and AJE and more than 250 presentations at scholarly meetings and being principal investigator or co-investigator on numerous grants totaling in excess of $20,000,000. Currently Dr. Tyler Smith is professor of biostatistics, epidemiology, public health and health informatics; director of a health analytics master’s degree; Chair of the Department of Community Health at National University; and consults regularly in health analytics, database management, and Veteran health research.
Associate Professor Darryl Tong – University of Otago and NZDF
Darryl is a Consultant surgeon for the Southern District Health Board and Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Otago, Dunedin. Qualified in both dentistry and medicine from the University of Otago, he completed his speciality training in oral and maxillofacial surgery at the University of Washington, Seattle and holds Fellowships from the Royal College of Surgeons of England and Ireland and from the American College of Surgeons. His clinical and research interests include trauma medicine, maxillofacial trauma and reconstructive surgery with a particular interest in ballistic injuries to the face and jaws, veterans’ health and military medicine and history. He is part of a collaborative research group between the University of Otago, the Centre of Military and Veterans’ Health and the NZDF. Darryl is a Colonel in the NZ Army Reserve and is the Consultant Maxillofacial surgeon for the NZ Defence Force. He has deployed to Kandahar as the sole maxillofacial surgeon for Southern Afghanistan based at the NATO Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit. He is currently the Health Reserve Advisor for the Directorate of Defence Health Services and the Honorary Surgeon to the Governor General of NZ. Darryl is happily married with four children.
CAPT David Robertson MBBS (Hons), DipModLang – Fiona Stanley Fremantle Hospitals Group and Australian Army Reserves
Dr David Robertson began his military career in 2009 as an Australian Army infantry soldier before being accepted into medical school at the University of Western Australia. Throughout his medical training, David continued his military service as a reservist infantry soldier before graduating and commencing work as a doctor. At this point, he transferred to the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps and was commissioned as a medical officer with 3rd Health Support Battalion where he continues in a reservist capacity. He is currently working as a resident medical officer in Perth, Western Australia with the aim of soon entering the anaesthetics training program. His medical interests include critical care, retrieval/pre-hospital care, trauma and military medicine.
