I was appointed as Director of Cardiac Research and Senior Staff Specialist at the Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Services, and Professor at the Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering, University of the Sunshine Coast, in July 2013. Prior to this I was Professor of Cardiology at Bournemouth University, UK, and Director of Cardiology in Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Dorset. In 2013 I moved to Australia with my family with two main career goals: (1) to establish the cardiology department and SCHHS as a centre of research excellence in Australia (2) to improve the overall health of the community. I am supervisor to several PhD students and have projects underway looking at the effects of insulin on the skeletal and cardiac blood flow, cardiovascular screening, work place health and integration of primary care data with secondary care.

Hello everyone. I believe change every once in a while is a good thing, and recently had my 10 year ‘reset’! I have previously been interested in teasing out the factors that affect the human heart at a physiological level. However, although my research produced interesting results, I actually felt I wasn’t making much difference to the average person on the street. So it began to occur to me, on a personal level, that I would get greater fulfilment if I could influence health on a population level through research and intervention. I have now altered course in terms of my research focus and am working on areas like workplace health, cardiovascular screening, and data integration. I think my expertise as a cardiologist and researcher will be helpful in this domain, and undertaking an MAE at NCEPH would give me a great start in this area. I am also looking forward to being a student again!