Dr Susie Cartledge, Alfred Health
Research focus: Evaluating and implementing HeartPath+: An evidence-based digital resource to support long-term self-management for patients with coronary heart disease and their families
Supported by Equity Trustees from 2025-2027.
Dr Susie Cartledge is a recipient of a Monash Partners Strategic Translation and Research (STAR) Clinician Fellowship. The program invests in emerging and mid-career clinical academics to support their career pathway development and train the next generation of researchers. Monash Partners spoke to Susie upon accepting this Fellowship.
What is your career background and research history?
I trained as a Registered Nurse and during my Bachelor degree enjoyed taking the research units. I was offered to go onto an Honours year, which I undertook, after my clinical graduate year. I was really fortunate to score an amazing Honours project in 2005 – being the first in the Southern Hemisphere to evaluate patient outcomes of minimally invasive robotic cardiac surgery. From here the research bug was well and truly caught! I then continued to work clinically for many years before jumping back into research through a nursing research clinical trial role for several years which really led me to wanting to be able to undertake my own research. I then commenced my PhD at the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine in 2014.
How did you become interested in focusing on coronary heart disease?
My final rotation of my nursing graduate year was in cardiac and I really enjoyed this specialty as critical thinking, advanced clinical skills and more autonomy are required. I returned to cardiac nursing during my Honours degree to work with the da Vinci robotic surgery team and from there focused on cardiac nursing for most of my clinical career.
What is the prevalence of coronary heart disease in Australia and current issues that patients and families face?
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is currently the leading cause of death in Australia, with more than 590,000 people living with the disease. Having nursed in cardiac wards and now working with patients and families after discharge through my research, one of the biggest issues patients and families face is managing the condition long term. It is common for people to have repeat events and hospital admissions (approximately 20 – 50% of people living with CHD) and therefore it is imperative that we support these patients and their families long term to live healthy and long lives. Firstly, patients and families tell me what a shock it is to have a cardiac event (most commonly a heart attack). Many have told me it’s like a “bomb” or a “detonation” within their family. Secondly, they tell me its difficult to navigate care and find information after discharge and this is the focus of my research.
Tell us about your research study.
We are testing the effectiveness and the implementation of a patient education and transition of care website called HeartPath+. The website has been co-designed with people living with heart disease and their families in order to meet their education and information needs and to help them navigate through the first six weeks following hospital discharge. The study is a hybrid effectiveness implementation study, so we will test how effective the website is for assisting patients to actively self-manage their health (an outcome designated by consumers we work with) and how we can implement the website into a cardiac ward.
What are you hoping to achieve with your research?
Through this study we hope to be able to empower cardiac patients and their families with easily accessible knowledge that assists them in their recovery, specifically the really challenging time of leaving hospital, recovering at home and then going onto outpatient cardiac rehabilitation. As patients only retain one fifth of the information and education given to them while in hospital we hope this website will really make a difference for their recovery, for increasing the ability to manage their health (the primary outcome of the study, which was chosen by consumers) and to understand the importance of attending cardiac rehabilitation, therefore increasing attendance and completion at these important secondary prevention programs. We hope these outcomes will lead to a decrease in anxiety and depression post discharge and assist them to complete cardiac rehabilitation which has strong evidence for decreasing hospital readmissions and increasing quality of life.
Why did you apply for a Monash Partners STAR Clinician Fellowship?
The Monash Partners STAR Clinician Fellowship is such a wonderful opportunity for mid-career researchers like myself to keep learning and growing as researchers, particularly in the critical area of implementation science. I believe clinicians are particularly well placed to undertake implementation science and take ideas and research and actually integrate them in our clinical areas. I am really excited about the opportunity to improve my implementation science skills through this fellowship and the mentoring and training it will provide.
Why is support for emerging and mid-career clinical academics crucial?
The landscape for researchers in Australia is becoming more difficult with each passing year. As a researcher who has just clocked over to mid-career, there seem to be even less opportunities. Without funding opportunities like these, we will lose so much knowledge, skill and expertise in Australia, which is very concerning. Clinician academics are in my biased opinion very special as we are well placed to solve clinical problems and then implement the solutions, therefore support for this group is even more crucial.
What is the significance of receiving the Star Clinician Fellowship for your career and research?
This fellowship has been crucial to increasing my security in my research career and for that I am very grateful. Research salary funding is very difficult to obtain as mentioned earlier, so this fellowship allows me to be able to focus on progressing my research and training, and getting the critical work done, without wasting precious time on endless fellowship and grant applications.
What are your future aspirations for your research/career?
In addition to helping cardiac patients and families live longer and have heathier lives, I would also like to one day secure a clinical research leadership position where I can support and mentor nurses and allied health professionals to undertake their own quality improvement or research projects. Through my research and a future role supporting other aspiring clinician researchers, we can impact more than the four patients we are allocated to each shift and we can instead influence the care and outcomes of thousands of patients and their families, to make their health and lives better.
