Perth Children’s Hospital’s Asha Bowen recognised in King’s Birthday honours list for service to medicine

For Perth Children’s Hospital infectious disease boss Professor Asha Bowen, there’s little comfort in being at the tail end of the pandemic. “I hate to be a doomsdayer, but a future pandemic, I think, is closer than we think,” Professor Bowen told The West. “We learned a lot during COVID that we had to learn on the fly, and the thing that would disappoint me most is if we don’t utilise those lessons well (enough) to be prepared for subsequent pandemics. “One of the key ones is as a clinician scientist is really trying to generate evidence in a very rapid framework to meet the clinical needs that are emerging when there’s a new disease — I don’t think we’re quite there yet in Australia, to be prepared to do that well in the next pandemic. “I know that a lot of people really just want to let COVID go and I also have some of that sense. It was a really tough period, but I think there’s so much to learn.” Professor Bowen has been listed on this year’s King’s Birthday Honours list with a Medal of the Order of Australia for her service to medicine in the field of clinical diseases. Taken by surprise at the award, Professor Bowen said she was proud to have been acknowledged as part of a wider group of worthy Australians. “That’s probably the essence of the honour for me is being that level of recognition but also realising what as a community of people who are being honoured, how much the value that brings to the Australian society,” she said. Alongside work at the PCH, Professor Bowen lead-researchers at the Telethon Kids Institute, tackling rheumatic heart disease and children’s skin. She is also serving a two-year term as the World Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases President. “For the last 15 years we’ve been really focused on how do we think about achieving healthy skin — predominantly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids and families — to prevent many of the downstream consequences that arise if skin is not well cared for,” Professor Bowen said. “It can contribute to sepsis and to a lot of bone and joint infections and it contributes to rheumatic fever, which is an entirely preventable condition if you treat strep early. “It’s so unusually ignored and in my mind, it’s on show and the largest organ of your body and it is an opportunity for a lot of preventative health care that often gets missed.”