Paul O'Brien

Paul O’Brien MD, FRACS, is the Director of the Centre for Obesity Research and Education (CORE), a major research centre within Monash University. He is Emeritus Professor of Surgery at Monash University, retiring in 2004 after 20 years as Head of the University’s Department of Surgery at the Alfred Hospital.

He is currently Head of the Centre for Bariatric Surgery, a major clinical service in the treatment of the obese in Melbourne. He is also is the National Medical Director for the American Institute of Gastric Banding, based in Dallas, Texas. His current principal areas of clinical and research interest are in the morbidity of obesity and the health benefits of weight loss.

He is Past President of the Obesity Surgery Society of Australia and New Zealand (1997 – 2004). He has recently retired from the position of Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal “Obesity Surgery“ and from Chairman of the Medical Devices Evaluation Committee (MDEC) of the Therapeutic Goods Administration of the Australian Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.

He has lead the clinical introduction and development of the Lap Band since an initial involvement in its design in 1991. He was one of the first in the world to use the gastric band, commencing in Australia in 1994.

Paul has published over 200 papers in the medical literature and has been active in conducting numerous postgraduate courses and workshops on obesity and its treatments in Australia, USA, countries of the Asia-Pacific region, South America and Canada over the past 15 years.