Dr Walter Abhayaratna is a senior staff specialist, consultant cardiologist and Clinical Director of Medicine, Canberra Hospital and Health Services. His PhD at the Australian National University was in the field of cardiovascular epidemiology and echocardiography, and he completed a 3-year fellowship in the Echocardiography Laboratory at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA. He holds a number of NHMRC research grants for clinical research into the prevention of cardiovascular disease and is the Director of Clinical Trials at ACT Health.