I was honoured to be recently accepted into the Emerging Leaders Committee of the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance (ACvA). I look forward to sharing my perspective as part of a national community dedicated to advancing cardiovascular research and heart health.
Seeing patients shows me which questions we do not yet have good answers for. Research is how I try to answer them. Doing both means my research stays grounded in real problems, and the care I provide keeps improving because I am helping to build the evidence behind it.
My path so far
Cardiology appealed to me because the heart is simultaneously mechanical, electrical and human, and because the questions are rarely straightforward. I currently practise as a Consultant Cardiologist with Premier Cardiology at The Wesley Hospital in Brisbane and serve as a Clinical Affiliate of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute. My expertise spans aortic stenosis and valvular heart disease, heart failure, advanced cardiac imaging and cardio-oncology, which involves caring for the heart during cancer treatment.
That breadth is deliberate. Patients do not arrive as a single diagnosis. Someone with a narrowed aortic valve may also be midway through chemotherapy, with a weakening heart muscle and a family history of coronary disease. Working across areas allows me to treat that as one person, not four separate problems.
In my current research, I am applying artificial intelligence and multi-omics data to predict cardiovascular risk earlier, so problems can be treated before they become irreversible.
Supporting the next generation
Much of what I value most in my career has come from supporting the next generation of cardiologists. I co-founded the Association of Queensland Advanced Trainees in Cardiology (AQuATIC), helped establish education, networking, and advocacy of cardiology advanced trainees in Queensland, and served as national trainee representative on the RACP cardiology training committee. Those experiences taught me one lesson repeatedly: much more is achieved when good people are connected and pointed in the same direction. The Emerging Leaders Committee is that idea taken national.
I first joined the ACvA in 2019 as a member of the Clinical Trials Flagship Advisory Group. That work showed me what an alliance can do that no single institution can. Joining the Emerging Leaders Committee is a chance to keep contributing while helping bring others through.
What I hope we can achieve
My hopes for the committee are practical. I would like to see a clinician, a basic scientist, a data scientist and a trialist able to find one another and work on the same problem. If we can help emerging researchers access the training and collaborators they need, take chances on promising ideas, and get discoveries into clinics faster, we will have done our job.
Read more here: Where patient care meets discovery
