Professor Gerry O’Callaghan [MB B Ch BAO FICA FCICM] Adelaide Anaesthetics, Clinical Trials, Emergency Medical Care, is a senior intensive care specialist and health system leader having held a variety of professional positions from health service executive roles, Chair of the South Australian Clinical Senate to a national leadership role in establishing DonateLife and the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplant Authority. He has 20 years of experience in the organ donation and transplantation sector. He has extensive experience in system reform and change across a range of domains such as implementation of electronic health records, clinical guidelines, structural reform of service delivery environments and quality improvement. These activities have nurtured a strong commitment to and practice of consumer and clinician codesign and engagement with a focus on interprofessional collaborative practice and education leading to his recent appointment as Professor of Interprofessional Learning in the College of Health at Adelaide University (AU). He has long standing involvement with CQR’s through his roles in organ donation, transplantation and ANZICS where he is a member of the ANZICS CORE Outlier Working Group and was the Inaugural Chair of the ANZICS Education Committee. Prof O’Callaghan currently leads a health service research program across CALHN and AU exploring the use of routinely collected data in electronic medical records to support care progression and effective resource allocation.

Prof O’Callaghan was the inaugural National Medical Director (2009-11) of the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority providing advice on a range of professional medical issues integral to successful implementation of the National Reform Package and leading reform in the medical and clinical space. He was a member of the ANZICS Brain Death and Organ Donation Committee (2006-2009), which published the third edition of the Statement on Brain Death and Organ Donation; the National Clinical Taskforce on Organ and Tissue Donation (2007-08); and the NHMRC Working Party on Ethical Guidelines on Organ and Tissue Donation for Transplantation (2005-2006). He chaired the Advisory Group to the NHMRC National Organ Donation Collaborative (2006-2008); and the Working Group which wrote the National Protocol for Donation after Cardiac Death.

Prof O’Callaghan graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, after which he undertook postgraduate training in anaesthesia in Ireland and the United Kingdom. He subsequently trained in intensive care medicine in Australia, gaining fellowship of the College of Intensive Care Medicine in 1997. He became interested in the challenges of facilitating organ donation and the interface with transplantation medicine while working in the Institute of Liver Studies, Kings College Hospital, London. Prof O’Callaghan 's career is marked by extensive experience in clinical intensive care medicine including heart, liver and renal transplantation both pre and post-transplant surgery in Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom; adult and paediatric cardiac surgery programs; trauma and aeromedical retrieval services; ethics, policy development and implementation and clinical practice improvement. His clinical experience in critical care and anaesthesia has been in tertiary referral teaching centres which manage high acuity complex caseloads with high levels of occupancy and activity. Prof O’Callaghan has consequently developed a focus on the translation of sound evidence-based practice into effective patterns of clinical service delivery focused on the needs of patients and families. The tools for delivering high-quality care have become the focus of his research interests. He currently serves on the South Australian Clinical Senate (December 2011 -) and is the Inaugural Chair of the ANZICS Education Committee (2011 -).