Clare Heal

Dr Clare Heal is Professor (Promotional Chair) and Academic Lead of the Department of General Practice at James Cook University School of Medicine and Dentistry. She is based at the Rural Clinical School in Mackay, Queensland.

Over the past ten years she has been principle investigator, or supervising co-investigator of seven successful practice based randomised controlled trials investigating the management of skin cancer surgery. The results of these trials have been published in high impact medical journals, such as the British Medical Journal. In 2016 her study comparing sterile to clean boxed gloves was named one of the top 20 top international studies for Primary Care Physicians.She was awarded the AAAGP award for best research in Primary Care in 2006, 2015 and 2024, and the RACGP Peter Mudge Medal for best research in General Practice in 2012 and 2016. She is principle author of a Cochrane review on topical antibiotic prophylaxis was published in November 2016.

She continues to be active in clinical and academic general practice. She is former chair of the RACGP National Research Committee, and a current member of both the Australian Journal of General Practice and the European Journal of General Practice Editorial Advisory Committees. Since 2014 she has been a member of the Oxford Primary Care Leadership program. From 2022-2023 she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and completed a Masters in Epidemiology at Harvard University.

She currently supervises several honours students and PhD students and has had 32 successful honours completions. She has published more than 100 peer reviewed journal articles.

In addition to her research activities, she is chair of the Year five assessment and member of an expert exam item-writing panel for the Australian Medical Council.