Michaela Waak

Dr Waak is one of the few paediatric specialists internationally with fellowships in paediatrics, neurology and paediatric intensive care/retrieval medicine. She is an academic intensivist, neurologist, clinical trialist, and specialist in EEG monitoring in children and adolescence.

Since arriving in Brisbane in 2012 she has led significant improvements in the care of critically ill children. She has performed audits and guideline developments and research and implemented an EEG pathway and first in Australia paediatric code stroke process.

She is investigating the impact of an interdisciplinary educational program for paediatric neurocritical care and is an inaugural faculty member and author of the national education and training course in neurocritical care (Paediatric Neuro-critical Care: beyond BASIC), the first paediatric course of its kind.

The focus of her research are improvements in management of acute neurological disease and quality improvement in PICU. She is part of the paediatric critical care research group at the centre for children’s health research, which has the highest number of peer-reviewed studies published in the field of paediatric critical care in Australia, and a strong track record with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

She is CI on projects investigating the impact of EEG monitoring and early seizure management on children with acute ischemic stroke, connectivity indices during childhood stroke recovery using HD-EEG, feasibility and impact of quantitative EEG on subclinical seizure recognition and management in children in ICU and the impact of a code stroke on timeliness of recognition, management and outcomes in acute ischemic stroke in children.