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Norman Swan

Dr Norman Swan, host of the Health Report, on ABC Radio National, presenter of Health Minutes on ABC NewsRadio, health commentator, speaker and facilitator, is a multi-award winning broadcaster and journalist.

One of the first medically qualified journalists in Australia, Norman was born in Scotland, graduated in medicine the University of Aberdeen and later obtained his postgraduate qualifications in Paediatrics.

Joining the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1982, he has won numerous awards for his journalism and broadcasting.

Norman was named Australian Radio Producer of the Year in 1984 and was awarded a Gold Citation in the United Nations Media Peace Prizes for his radio work. He has won three Walkley National Awards for Australian journalism, including the prestigious Gold, and Australia's top prize for Science Journalism, the Michael Daly Award, twice.

A famous example of Norman's work is his much publicised and controversial investigative program on scientific fraud and the well-known gynaecologist Dr William McBride. The program exposed fraudulent research, sending shock waves throughout the medical world and led to Dr William McBride being de-registered. It earned Dr Swan the 1988 Australian Writers' Guild Award for best documentary and a Gold Walkley.

Norman Swan is known outside Australia. He has been the Australian correspondent for the Journal of the American Medical Association and the British Medical Journal and consults for the World Health Organisation in Geneva. In late 2008 Norman will chair a meeting of the world's Health Ministers in Africa which aims to pursue the goal of making health policy evidence based.