Associate Professor Nicola Cunningham is an emergency and forensic physician with expertise in medical law, clinical governance, patient safety, clinical human factors and high-risk decision-making. Nicola’s work spans emergency and forensic medicine, clinical ethics, simulation and medical education. She is Deputy Director of Emergency Medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, where she combines clinical practice with leadership in quality improvement and patient safety; Patient Safety Education Lead at Monash Medicine; and National Ethics Simulation Lead for St Vincent’s Health. She is also co-founder and editor of The Communiqués, translating lessons from coronial investigations and adverse events into practical improvements in clinical practice. Nicola has a particular interest in understanding why things go wrong in complex healthcare systems and designing for safer care. Her work is united by a simple question: how can we help clinicians make better decisions when the stakes are high?
