Dr Michael Leach is a Senior Lecturer (Education and Research) at the Monash University School of Rural Health, Bendigo. Dr Leach’s interdisciplinary work encompasses quality and safety in healthcare. Dr Leach has held research and statistician positions at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Loddon Mallee Integrated Cancer Service (LMICS), and Monash University. While employed at LMICS, he undertook a part-time secondment with Cancer Australia to work across all Australian jurisdictions on the Data-driven Regional Cancer Care Initiative. Dr Leach actively pursues an interest in digital health by undertaking CPD to maintain a Certified Health Informatician Australasia (CHIA) qualification through the Australasian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH). He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Dr Leach’s current research projects include education and supportive care for people prescribed oral anti-cancer medications, availability and accessibility of community pharmacies, the Gippsland Cancer Survivorship Program, the I.CAN health coaching program for people with cancer, an evaluation of the Victorian Fetal Alcohol Service (VicFAS), implementing the Optimal Care Pathway for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People with Cancer, palliative care skills among nurses, quality of life among people living with a stoma in regional Victoria, neurological outcomes in patients surviving an in-hospital cardiac arrests, the prevalence and correlates of advance care planning across Victoria, and projects investigating the pharmacoepidemiology of psychoactive drugs. His educational responsibilities include teaching evidence-based practice and applied statistics across the units MAP5003 (Essentials of Advanced Health Care Practice and Research) and MPH5214 (Demographic Methods) as well as running online workshops for health care students located across rural Victoria. Dr Leach has successfully co-supervised a BMedSc(Hons) student who investigated the short- and long-term outcomes of MET calls in a regional hospital setting as well as two BBMedSc(Hons) students who undertook rural cancer survivorship projects. Dr Leach is currently co-supervising a PhD student who is investigating prostate cancer care provided to individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and another PhD student who is investigating access to cancer clinical trials. He is available to supervise PhD projects related to cancer survivorship, demography, health humanities, and social support.

Dr Leach’s work in the health sciences is complemented by a passion for the health humanities, particularly health-related poetry and history. In his own time, he has published poems related to health, science, and art in such journals as the Medical Journal of Australia, the Australian Journal of Pharmacy, and Cordite Poetry Review. His debut poetry collection is a chapbook of health-related poems entitled Chronicity (Melbourne Poets Union, 2020). His first full-length poetry collection, Natural Philosophies, is forthcoming from Recent Work Press. As part of his work at Monash University School of Rural Health, Dr Leach collaboratively runs haiku poetry writing workshops aimed at improving wellbeing and empathy among health care students. With regard to Australian pharmacy history, he has investigated psychoactive medicine dispensing in a community pharmacy setting during the Psychopharmacological Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. Dr Leach is currently a co-leader of the Australan and New Zealand Association for Health Professions Educators (ANZAHPE) Health Humanities Hot Topic Action Group (HTAG): https://anzahpe.org/page-1075487