A/Prof Andrew Cochrane

Associate Professor Andrew Cochrane is an experienced cardiac and cardiothoracic surgeon with more than 30 years of clinical practice and over two decades of experience as a consultant surgeon. His work spans both adult and paediatric cardiac surgery, with particular expertise in congenital heart disease and complex cardiac procedures.

Assoc. Prof. Cochrane undertook advanced surgical training at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Alfred Hospital and the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, and also completed training in the United Kingdom. Early in his consultant career he worked at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane from 1993 to 1995 before being appointed Consultant Cardiac Surgeon at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, where he worked from 1995 to 2008. From 2003 he also served as a cardiac surgeon at Monash Medical Centre in Clayton, later becoming Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery and continuing his clinical work there until 2022.

During his time at Monash Medical Centre, Assoc. Prof. Cochrane played a key role in developing the adolescent and adult congenital heart surgery programme, providing surgical care for patients with congenital heart defects requiring initial or ongoing operations into adulthood. Alongside this specialist work, he has managed the full spectrum of adult cardiac surgical conditions.

In addition to his clinical practice, Assoc. Prof. Cochrane has made significant contributions to academic research and medical education. He has supervised numerous student and postgraduate research projects and is the co-author of more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles. He serves as an editor for the journals Heart, Lung & Circulation and the ANZ Journal of Surgery and regularly reviews manuscripts for other international medical journals.

His academic qualifications include a Master of Public Health with a focus on health economics and economic evaluation, and a Master of Epidemiology from the University of Melbourne. He also completed a dual MBA and Master of Health Services Management at Monash University in 2014.

Assoc. Prof. Cochrane has been actively involved in professional leadership through the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS). He previously served as Chair of the Victorian State Committee of the College from 2006 to 2008, during which time the Victorian Audit of Surgical Mortality (VASM) was established. He has also served as Deputy Chair of the Cardiothoracic Board and currently sits on the RACS Council as the elected cardiothoracic representative.

Beyond his clinical and academic work, Assoc. Prof. Cochrane has a longstanding commitment to global health and humanitarian surgery. Over the past two decades he has participated in more than 30 charitable surgical missions across the Pacific Islands, Timor-Leste, Myanmar, South America and Sri Lanka. He has also been involved in operating on international patients brought to Melbourne through organisations such as Rotary and the Children First Foundation. He previously served for 15 years as a board member of Maluk Timor, a non-governmental organisation supporting primary healthcare in Timor-Leste, and was a board member of East Timor Hearts between 2014 and 2018. He currently serves as Deputy Chair of AUSLAMAT (Australia Sri Lanka Medical Aid Team).

In recognition of his contributions to surgery and his extensive humanitarian work overseas, Associate Professor Andrew Cochrane was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) in 2012.