I trained in respiratory, sleep, intensive care and general medicine. I completed a PhD in sleep apnoea and then joined the gen med and ICU teams at Dandenong in 2002. Although I don’t do ICU any more, there is still a few balls to juggle. I really enjoy education and watching medical students turn into junior consultants (and start knowing more than me). I have in recent years kick started my research interests – later in the career path than most. And really enjoying getting this moving. Holidays with the family kids is what I really do best. They have been a bit spoilt with the overseas travel. But its my indulgence more than theirs. I love having watched them be taught to ski – but now they can teach me!
I am currently the Deputy Director of Monash Lung and Sleep with key responsibility for overseeing the sleep service. This includes 3500 sleep studies per year and a range of multidisciplinary sleep clinics recently established.
For 8 years now I’ve been involved in physician training and currently am the Consortia Director of Physician Training. In my spare time I disappear uptown to run Epworth Sleep Centre. I have an Adjunct position at the School of Psychological Sciences Monash University from which the research is developing.
Most of my adolescence I had a very dim view of the medical profession. I wanted to be a naturopath! I ate raw eggs, sprinkled bone meal on my home made muesli oats and took intravenous megadose vitamin C. I’m not sure quite what made me swing around and do medicine. A family friend had some input (after I got the marks). She said ‘if you have a problem with the profession, you can do more becoming part of it than fighting against it’! 17 year olds aren’t that hard to influence and I guess that was enough.




