FITS Clinicians are a network of independent specialist practitioners working in a supportive and collaborative practice.
A/Professor Daryl Cheng
A/Professor Daryl Cheng is a general paediatrician with a special interest in travel and immunisation medicine – his practice is to empower and work together with a multi-disciplinary team alongside families and children to be the driver in achieving their wellbeing. As such, he complements clinical practice with community-based workshops on preventative health, and is an avid organiser of medical mission initiatives internationally.
A/Prof Cheng currently works as a consultant paediatrician and clinical informatician at The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH), Cabrini Health and Monash Children’s Hospital. He is also a paediatrician with SAEFVIC, the vaccine safety service for Victoria, and has research and education appointments at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and the Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne.
Daryl is a co-founder of Family & Immunisation Travel Specialists (FITS).
Professor Jim Buttery
Professor Jim Buttery is a paediatric infectious diseases physician and vaccinologist. He is the inaugural Professor of Child Health Informatics at the University of Melbourne, and is also the Head of Health Informatics, Epidemiology and Signal detection at SAEFVIC and Chief Clinical Research Information Officer & Infectious Diseases Physician at The Royal Children’s Hospital.
Prof Buttery serves as a member of the Strategic Priority Group of the WHO Global Vaccine Safety Initiative, for the Australian Medical Services Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee on Vaccines of the Therapeutics Goods Administration.
Jim is a co-founder of Family & Immunisation Travel Specialists (FITS).
Dr Linny Kimly Phuong
Dr Linny Phuong is an Infectious Diseases Paediatrician. She has broad interests within the field of infectious diseases with active research in Group A Streptococcal carriage, pneumococcal infections and Kawasaki disease. She also has a keen interest in medical education and public health, having founded a not-for-profit dedicated to improving the health literacy of communities from migrant, refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds.
Dr Linny also holds research and education appointments at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and the Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne.
Dr Dima El-Sukkari
Dr Dima El-Sukkari is a paediatric doctor at the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) and Monash Children’s Hospital. Her experience includes general paediatrics and paediatric emergency medicine.
Dr Dima is passionate about improving healthcare and her interests spans clinical research roles at the Murdoch’s Children Research Institute (MCRI) and Monash Children’s Clinical Trial Centre (MCTC) with further research appointments at the University of Melbourne through the Vaccine and Immunisation Research Group (VIRGo).
As a clinician researcher her clinical work involves clinical vaccine trial safety and efficacy as well as investigation of treatments for behavioral diversity in neurodevelopmental disorders.
Dr Dima is committed to providing the highest quality, compassionate and effective paediatric care for families.
Dr Priya Shenton
Dr Priya Shenton is a general paediatrician with a broad range of experience in general and acute paediatrics, immunisation, and vaccine safety, as well as significant experience in mental health care. She has a passion for evidence-based medicine as well as applying holistic, family centred approaches to paediatric health care.
Priya is currently working at the Royal Children’s Hospital and enjoys her role in supporting and supervising junior medical staff as working with many departments in the hospital, particularly, in education.
Karen Bellamy
Karen Bellamy is an Immunisation Nurse Practitioner, specialising in paediatric, adult, antenatal, and travel vaccines.
Karen has a broad interest in paediatric and adult vaccine safety and extensive experience in vaccine preventable disease research. Karen serves as a current member of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI).
FITS Nursing Team
Our FITS nurses are an integral part of our team, each with a wealth of knowledge and experience in immunisation practice.. You will meet one of Jo, Sarah, Cathy and Grace as part of your immunisation appointment.