Dr Allan Kirkpatrick
B.Med (University of Newcastle) M.Med Skin Cancer (University of Queensland) FRACGP
Allan was born and raised in Newcastle and after completing high school at Cardiff started work at BHP as a Metallurgy Trainee. After several career changes he was accepted into Newcastle University’s Medical School and graduated in 1990. He completed his internship and residency years in the local hospitals and entered general practice in mid-1992. He was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners in 1997. In 2014 he completed a Master’s Degree in Skin Cancer in order to provide an accessible and affordable service to local people suffering the effects of years of sun exposure.
Allan has always had a special interest in palliative care and served as a Visiting Medical Officer with the Calvary Mater Palliative Care Team for over 20 years. He resigned from this position in 2019 to allow him to focus on providing services at Lake Macquarie and Warners Bay Private Hospitals as well as the Aged Care Sector
He is available for admissions and consultations at Lake Macquarie Private Hospital and Warners Bay Private Hospital for symptom control and end of life care. He is also very involved in the Aged Care sector servicing four Nursing Homes in the Lake Macquarie region. The reality is that residents of Aged care facilities are unfortunately approaching the end of their lives and deserve to be kept comfortable and to be able to make a seamless transition to end of life care when their time comes. He believes that people in aged care deserve to be able to end their lives in familiar surroundings with comfort and dignity.
Allan is passionate about providing good palliative care to patients, believing that he is not just treating a patient but treating the entire family. He believes that relieving the patient’s pain and other symptoms relives distress from families during a period in their lives that is stressful enough!
In addition to his work at Lake Macquarie Private and Warners Bay Private he is also pleased to see patients and their families in his surgery at Cardiff General Practice.
Dr Erica Cameron-Taylor
BA B.Med (University of Newcastle) FRACGP FaCHPM, RACP
Dr Erica Cameron-Taylor is a Palliative Medicine Specialist
Dr Cameron-Taylor completed her medical degree at the University of Newcastle and completed rural General Practice training. She subsequently undertook advanced training in Palliative Medicine through the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
For the last seven years she has worked as a staff specialist in the Department of Palliative Care at Calvary Mater and has a conjoint appointment at the University of Newcastle. Her particular interests include optimising a patient-centred transition from active to palliative treatment and she has been involved in several clinical trials completed through the PACCSC group. Her work in medical education has been presented at local and international meetings and she is currently team leader for the provision of online spaced education in End-of-Life-Care across the Hunter New England healthcare district.
Erica also provides specialist palliative care to patients at Lake Macquarie and Warners Bay Private Hospitals and attends a regular outpatient clinic for palliative care patients at Cardiff General Practice.
She is also Head of Clinical Co-ordination with CannaPacific https://www.cannapacific.com.au/
who are a Government Licenced Australian medical Cannabis company based in Newcastle and the Macleay Valley on the mid-north coast of NSW. She has been actively involved in key cannabis research, including as lead site investigator, for both the PaCCSC and ImPaCCT clinical studies collaboratives.
For a personal consultation with our friendly team, call 02 4903 9000