A sleep specialist’s voice on sleep medicine—personalized medicine and sleep apnea

Professor Doug McEvoy (Figure 1) has been at the forefront of sleep medicine in Australia for over 25 years—as an academic, government advisor, and chairperson and member of national and international scientific advisory and professional committees. He is Director of the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, one of Australia’s leading clinical and research sleep medicine centers, and is a Practitioner Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council. He is a past President of the Australasian Sleep Association and is a founding Board member of the Sleep Health Foundation. For many years Doug has been a mentor and guide to emerging Australian and New Zealand clinicians and scientists in sleep medicine. In the last ten years alone his department has trained over 20 PhD students and sleep specialists, many of whom are now making significant contributions to the professional development of sleep medicine internationally and successfully forging their own independent research careers. Doug’s major research roles currently are as Principal Investigator of the international Sleep Apnea cardio Vascular Endpoints study and as Theme Leader in “personalized sleep medicine” in the Australian Cooperative Research Centre in Alertness, Safety and Productivity.