Professor Jennifer Martin, Chair of the discipline of Clinical Pharmacology, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle.
What do you do? and what is a typical week for you?
I spend a lot of time teaching medical students, residents and registrars, particularly for their physician exams. When on ward service for general medicine I spend my time seeing patients. I am also attending/presenting Grand Rounds and am involved in a variety of ward consultant committees, such as:
- Ethics
- Drug use
- High cost drugs
I am also involved with the Safety and Quality and Registration and reimbursement sub-committees. My work with the Government Advisory Board Research includes leading the team, mentoring and supervising, writing grants, sitting on grant review panels, reviewing manuscripts for journals, reviewing others work, and doing research!
What qualifications and experience do you have?
- Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB)
- Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE)
- Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP)
- Postgraduate doctoral degree (PhD)
- Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors
(GAICD)
What’s the most interesting aspect of your job?
There is a lot of variety, and I enjoy many aspects of my career, including clinical consults, research and teaching.
What are your research interests?
Repurposing of old drugs, reviewing the older literature, helping use new drugs appropriately - currently medical cannabis and therapeutic drug monitoring of cancer drugs.
What one piece of advice would you give to someone seeking a career in clinical pharmacology?
Develop a wide range of national and international clinical pharmacology contacts so you can have experience of all the amazing parts of clinical pharmacology. Learn about policy and advocacy early as you will need it - sometimes appear to be the only analytical voice on a Hospital committee!