Biography
Bruce Arroll is a graduate from the University of Auckland and spent a year at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and had his first exposure to Clinical Epidemiology there. He spent the next 6 years working in Canada completing a Masters degree in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of British Columbia. He returned to New Zealand to do a PhD in Epidemiology. After three years he joined the Department of General Practice at the University of Auckland and has been there ever since. Having attended the meeting that established the Australasian Cochrane Centre he has been involved in four Cochrane reviews. He is currently the chapter editor for the common cold for the British Medical Journal Evidence based textbook called Clinical Evidence. He has an ongoing interest in trying to reduce the use of antibiotics in viral respiratory infections with a specific interest in the use of delayed prescriptions. He is also interested in screening for lifestyle and mental health issues in primary care.
He has been working in Manurewa since 1991 and is currently jointly running (since September 2006) the Greenstone Family Clinic in Manurewa which has been set up as a teaching and research clinic for training health professionals. This clinic was originally established by the University of Auckland with a grant from the ASB bank. Since 2003 it has been run by Raukura Hauora O Tainui which is a health care organisation run by the Tainui tribe. There are four clinics as part of this organisation and in 2004 120 medical students spent time at one of the clinics. As well as being involved in teaching medical students Bruce Arroll is also involved in teaching general practice registrars who a graduates training specifically in general practice. Other teaching involves a distance/flexible learning masters course in research methods. This is a course that graduate doctors, nurses, pharmacists and counsellors do as part of their masters degree.