Prof Peter Macdonald announced as a finalist for 2018 Australian of the Year

Congratulations to St Vincent’s cardiologist and medical director Professor Peter Macdonald who was recently named one of the NSW nominees for 2018 Australian of the Year.

Peter has carried out world-leading work along side our Transplant team over the past three decades, and as both a cardiologist and researcher, Peter has been an instrumental figure in many of the team's endeavours. In a world first, Peter and his research team discovered how to successfully transplant a DCD or‘dead’ heart - a heart that had stopped beating – using preservation fluid developed in the laboratory and a machine that allows the heart to beat outside the body. Known as the‘heart in a box’, this medical innovation will increase the number of heart transplants that can be performed by at least 30%.

Perhaps most his most significant achievement, is the extraordinarily high regard his patients and colleagues have for him. Peter has a reputation as an extremely caring clinician and has long served our mission in an inspiring way that has influenced many of his peers and the countless JMO’s he’s trained. He is also actively striving to close the gap in health inequality by providing outreach services to remote Indigenous communities.

Peter’s work to swiftly translate his research endeavours in his Victor Chang lab to the patient bedside is the true embodiment of what our St Vincent’s Campus is all about in co-locating world-leading research institutes to foster translational research that responds to our greatest disease challenges. This is probably most encapsulated in Peter’s pivotal role in conducting the world’s first DCD heart transplant at St Vincent’s.

On behalf of all of us at St Vincent’s, we wish Peter a hearty congratulations – there couldn’t be a more deserving person worthy of this huge honour.