A Rhythm of Excellence: Professor Martin Stiles Takes the Stage
At the Waikato Clinical Campus of the University of Auckland's Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at Waikato Hospital, Professor Martin Stiles delivered his inaugural professorial lecture, co-hosted by Martin's colleague and Pūtahi Manawa Co-Director, Professor Julian Paton and doctoral mentor, Professor Prashanthan Sanders from Royal Adelaide Hospital, Australia.
The lead-up to the lecture
There was a packed lecture theatre humming with excitement and anticipation awaiting the start of Professor Martin Stiles' inaugural lecture scheduled for 5:30 pm.
Already 5:35 pm, and the audience was beginning to wonder why there was a delay. Little did they know that Professor Stiles was waiting for his friend, collaborator and PhD mentor to arrive from Austria. As good friends never let you down, Professor Prashanthan Sanders miraculously appeared at 5:37 pm, blaming the Hamilton rush hour. So the evening could begin as it duly did with Professor Martin Stiles being escorted into the lecture theatre accompanied by Professors Warwick Bagg (the Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, UoA), Julian Paton, and Prash Sanders.
After a thoughtful opening address by Professor Bagg and an entertaining introduction by Professor Paton, which included what he described as both the “dry” academic credentials (e.g. h-index) of Professor Stiles as well as the “wet” far more interesting attributes of the speaker (e.g. Spice Girl dance moves) , Professor Stiles took to the lectern. And, what a tour de force presentation he delivered.
Professor Martin Stiles takes the stage
Professor Stiles is an interventional cardiologist, but from the number of pictures you find of him on a Google search, you know he is more than this. He’s been interested in cardiac arrhythmias all his professional life. He has described how he has perfect ways to better identify the aberrant electrical activity in the atrium that allows more effective ablations to stop atrial fibrillation, an arrhythmia that can cause stroke. He’s fixed a lot of people, including the famous, such as Rob Waddell, the gold medallist at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. (Read more.)
Professor Stiles and colleagues have led the world in cardiac ablation by writing the technical guidelines for its use in different conditions. But not all arrhythmias are bad, as he explained; he’s testing a novel device that reinstates a natural arrhythmia called heart rate variability. Indeed, much of his work is performing interventions for the first time in patients, where it is explained that this is only possible through research excellence.
With 125 publications under his belt, being the Director of Electrophysiology at Waikato Hospital, Chair of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, and now Professor of Medicine, University of Auckland, Professor Stiles is an unsung Pūtahi Manawa hero. Congratulations on a well-deserved Chair, Martin – it is so thoroughly deserved.