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Job title: Clinical director, medicine, Middlemore Hospital.


The chance to try progressive new approaches to health care drew Jeff Garrett to Middlemore Hospital.

With a background in respiratory medicine, which includes conditions ranging from asthma, lung cancer and tuberculosis to sleep-related breathing disorders, he is a former clinical director of respiratory services at Green Lane Hospital.

"South Auckland Health has a very good reputation," says Garrett, 49, who followed his training at Otago University with post-graduate study in London.

Rather than a top-down model, the hospital is working on integrated approaches to patient care, with teams made up of specialists from all backgrounds working across hierarchies.

"If you get the right people in to see the patient at the right time, you'll look after that person better, and one hopes they'll be better off," says Garrett.

He will also be involved in developing "strategic plans which help to evolve these sorts of concepts through at a practical level".

"South Auckland Health has developed these concepts further than any other health board," he says. "That makes for a potentially very exciting period, and that's what attracted me to the job."