Anne Creaton

Dr Anne Creaton is a Senior Lecturer in Medicine (Teaching Specialist) at James Cook University, an Emergency Physician, and a Senior Consultant in Aeromedical Retrieval with the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Her academic and clinical career spans more than two decades of education, assessment, retrieval medicine, emergency care systems and global health across rural, remote and low-resource settings. Her work is united by a consistent aim: to build clinically relevant, context-sensitive education and emergency care systems that improve outcomes for patients and strengthen the next generation of clinicians.

At JCU, Dr Creaton contributes to medical education as a Teaching Specialist, Clinical Skills Coordinator for Year 4 Medicine and Academic Advisor for Year 5 Medicine. She leads the Theatre in Medical Education project, a co-designed initiative that uses acting techniques, communication training and psychologically safe simulation principles to support equity, confidence and performance in clinical encounters and OSCEs. This work reflects her broader commitment to humanistic, patient-centred, performance-aware clinical education.

Dr Creaton has a longstanding interest in human factors and communication skills and led a communication skills training project for junior doctors at West Gippsland Healthcare Group. Supported by the Monash University department of rural health and working with experts from the Centre for Organisational Change in Person Centred Healthcare at Deakin University Dr Creaton designed a program to upskill a group of emergency physicians to allow communication skills training to be continued by staff working in the emergency department. https://wghg.com.au/news_archive/junior-doctors-benefit-from-new-communications-training/

Dr Creaton has a national reputation in retrieval medicine education and assessment.  She is an examiner for the Associateship in Pre‑hospital and Retrieval Medicine for Australia and New Zealand, a multi-college initiative (ACCRM, RACGP, ACEM, ANZCA, and CICM) and writes, reviews, and standardises assessment material. Dr Creaton is one of the founding editors of Oxford Specialist Handbook of Retrieval Medicine, a field defining textbook and JCU reference text described by Oxford University Press as an authoritative, practical guide authored by an international team of expert editors and specialist authors, positioning her work within the national and international retrieval medicine community. [global.oup.com]

Her international reputation is grounded in sustained Pacific emergency care development. She established and sustained postgraduate Emergency Medicine training in Fiji at Fiji National University and continues to mentor and support emergency care development across the region. https://www.fnu.ac.fj/blog/fijis-only-female-emergency-specialisthttps://www.health.gov.fj/locally-trained-specialists-deliver-emergency-care-beyond-the-walls-of-the-hospital/ .ACEM’s GECCoP communique describes her as instrumental in establishing postgraduate emergency medicine training in Fiji and continuing to support regional emergency care development through mentorship. [acem.org.au]  Fijian_doctor_publishes_research_in_prominent_EMA_Journal.pdf . Her article in the New England Journal of Medicine is used as a reference for courses at Sydney University and Monash University. https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMp1608837

Dr Creaton has undertaken consultancy work and held advisory roles with the World Health Organization since 2015, including current membership of the WHO Technical Advisory Group for Integrated Clinical Care. https://www.who.int/groups/technical-advisory-group-on-integrated-clinical-care. Dr Creaton deployed to Fiji aspart of an Australian Disaster Management Team (AUSMAT) during the COVID 19 Outbreak where she had the opportunity to work alongside her former students who now held leadership roles within the Fijian health system. https://www.nowem.org/blog-1/2021/10/6/responding-to-covid-19-in-the-west-of-fiji Her scholarship is applied, collaborative and policy relevant. Her publication record includes work on Fiji’s COVID-19 prehospital response, emergency care status and priorities across 17 Pacific Island Countries and Territories, trauma care in Fiji, emergency care development in the Indo-Pacific, health promotion in Fiji, and triage reform in Australian emergency departments. The 2024 Redesigning Prehospital Care: Fiji's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic paper documented the creation of Fiji’s Prehospital Emergency Care Coordination Centre and was the first article to document prehospital system development in the Pacific region. Dr Creaton undertakes peer review for the Emergency Medicine Australasia journal.

Dr Creaton’s contribution to regional emergency care standards has been recognised through ACEM’s Global Emergency Care Research Award, where the 2021 honour roll lists her as a coauthor of the Pacific emergency care consensus paper. ACEM describes the award as recognising significant published research in Global Emergency Care that promotes skill-sharing and participatory action research in partnership with researchers in developing countries. [acem.org.au] Anne is an active contributor to professional education and public scholarship. Her work and perspectives have been shared through the WADEM PDM Podcast, ACEM conference audio, SMACC and LITFL interviews and presentations, including discussions of Fiji’s emergency care training, dengue response, critical care, prehospital care and global health ethics. [soundcloud.com], [soundcloud.com], [litfl.com], [intensivec...etwork.com], [litfl.com]  Across these activities, Dr Creaton demonstrates the profile of an academic educator whose impact extends beyond institutional teaching into national assessment, specialist retrieval medicine education, international training programs, Pacific health system development, and public professional discourse. Her work offers a coherent body of evidence for leadership in medical education and global emergency care, with national and international reach across universities, colleges, retrieval services, professional bodies and Pacific partners.