Delving deeper into thyroid cancer, autoimmune thyroid disease and Graves’ disease

Dr Don McLeod is a Senior Staff Specialist in Endocrinology and Diabetes at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and The Prince Charles Hospital conducting a wide scope of research into thyroid disease.

The Clinician Research Fellowship has allowed Dr McLeod to delve deeper into the root causes and treatments of thyroid cancer, autoimmune thyroid
disease and Graves’ disease.

“The beauty about having time to have make a large research program is that you can have projects in all research stages of discovery, innovation and
implementation. I have four large projects already underway and the Fellowship allows me to broaden them further,” Dr McLeod said.

“I’m conducting research into thyroid cancers including the genetics of thyroid cancer and am looking at the patterns of disease in patients who
have died of thyroid cancer.

“I’m looking at the causes of Graves’ disease, whether it’s bacterial or microbial and I am also assessing possible triggers of disease in people who
come from high stress military backgrounds.”

Being a clinician and a researcher allows Dr McLeod to ask different questions that are more clinically relevant and get to the heart of why delivering healthcare and try to keep people well.

“I love doing my clinical work and I love seeing patients so I don’t ever want to give that up because it is really critical to have that face-to-face to drive improvements in healthcare,” he said.

“This farsighted program is really going to drive research across Metro North for the benefit of our patients and the wider community.”