Dr Marcel Zimmet is a paediatrician specialising in developmental and behavioural disorders including Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD).
Marcel works at the FASD Diagnostic and Assessment Clinic at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney. This will soon become part of the new Centre for the Prevention of Harm to Children and Adolescents from Drugs and Alcohol, with a remit for clinical care, training, research, advocacy and capacity building across New South Wales.
Marcel is a member of the Expert Panel that has developed the Australian FASD Diagnostic Instrument, including the national diagnostic guidelines and online training modules for health professionals. He is currently a chief investigator for national FASD case surveillance through the Australian Paediatric Surveillance, and for research into the impact of FASD on Australian children and families.
Marcel also works at Royal Far West in Manly providing developmental-behavioural paediatric care and parent therapy for children in rural and remote NSW, both face-to-face and via Telehealth. Marcel commenced his paediatric training at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, where he was a Fellow at the Centre for Community Child Health. He became a consultant paediatrician in Darwin, where he established a successful practice.
Marcel’s interest in FASD arose during his five years in the Northern Territory, where he saw the impact alcohol had on children and communities both non-Indigenous and Indigenous. It was not until he returned ‘down south’ that he became aware of the widespread misunderstanding and under-detection of FASD – one of the only preventable developmental disabilities – even within the health professions.