In conversation with Professor Rod MacLeod, we unpack the importance of connection and stories to care for people at the end of life.

Bio for Rod MacLeod MNZM, MB ChB, MMedEd, PhD, FRCGP, FAChPM (June 2022):

Professor Rod MacLeod retired from clinical practice in 2019 having been a doctor for 45 years and worked in specialist palliative care for over 30 years in England, New Zealand and Australia.

In 2003, he was appointed the inaugural South Link Health Professor in Palliative Care at the University of Otago, Dunedin School of Medicine and in 2013 was appointed Conjoint Professor in Palliative Care at the University of Sydney. He left there in 2019 and is now Honorary Professor at the University of Auckland, Chair of the Clinical Committee of The Violet Initiative as well as a consultant to HammondCare in Sydney.

He has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles in the area of palliative care in national and international journals and has written over 20 book chapters for palliative care texts. He is co-Editor in Chief of the Textbook of Palliative Care published by Springer in 2019.

He is one of the authors of The Palliative Care Handbook which has become a freely available standard text for health care professionals in New Zealand and more recently New South Wales.

He was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the Queen’s birthday honours in 2015.