Dr Chris Cole

Dr Chris Cole is a Consultant Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeon at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Greenslopes Private Hospital and the Wesley Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. 

His practice involves adult cardiac and thoracic surgery.  In addition to coronary artery bypass grafts, mitral and aortic surgery, his subspecialty interests are in aortic surgery, aortic dissection, redo aortic surgery, valve sparing aortic surgery, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVI/TAVR), minimally invasive thoracic surgery, including uniport surgery, and chest wall surgery.

He is involved in the teaching and administration of cardiac and thoracic surgery; the convenor of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Trainees meeting for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) sitting on the Board of Cardiothoracic Surgery, and the trainees meeting for the Australia and New Zealand Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery (ANZSCTS).  He is chair of the Queensland Cardiac Outcomes Registry (QCOR) Cardiac  and Thoracic Surgery Steering Committee, working on reporting the outcomes and quality of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery in Queensland.

His academic interests include surgical teaching, in particular simulator and model based training and assessment, surgical quality assessment and communication.

His current research involvement is in collaboration with medical oncology lab research into the microenvironment of lung cancer and novel targets and biomarkers.

His formal academic education began at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA, and was completed at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, where he graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1997 and Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 2001.

He is currently an Associate Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, having previously been Associate Professor at Bond University, Gold Coast.  He has received the UQMS prize for Excellence in Clinical Teaching.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in the Cardiothoracic Section.  He underwent surgical training at the Princess Alexandra Hospital and Prince Charles Hospital, both located in Brisbane and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney.  He has contributed to establishment of a cardiac surgical unit at the Gold Coast University Hospital.

He was previously a visiting scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong.  He is a member of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, the Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons, and the Australian Medical Association.