The country names – Austria and Australia – aren’t worlds apart although, on a global map, they might well seem to be that way.
So … you’ll forgive us a touch of pride we share in the fact that Austria-born Associate Professor Karam Kostner, Director of Cardiology at Brisbane’s Mater public and private hospitals and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Queensland, has been working right alongside our Heart of Australia on-the-road specialist medicine bush delivery team.
His CV describes Dr Kostner as “a general cardiologist and lipidologist with an interest in “imaging” who has “extensive clinical and research experience in lipid management and primary prevention of cardiovascular disease”.
For the record lipids such as cholesterol and triglycerides are important risk factors for coronary artery disease and Dr Kostner runs the biggest lipid clinic and research programme in Qld.
Dr Kostner, a married father of three, trained in Vienna in the 1990s in a range of medical specialties, from infectious diseases to intensive care, gastroenterology and cardiology.
He retains membership of a long list of medical training and research groups in Australia and Austria, as well as the Austrian and German Societies of Cardiology (he was President of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand 2012/2015) – and even the Australian Egg Research Council advisory board.
As if that’s not enough, Dr Kostner has been or is currently a member of no fewer than 12 medical editorial boards, plus his long list of formal teaching roles for medical and nursing students in Vienna and in no fewer than four Brisbane hospitals.
He’s now well-established in Brisbane with his “local girl” wife, Michelle, and their two teenage sons and one teenage daughter.
After his recent time joining the Heart of Australia rolling clinic team, Dr Kostner plans to stay involved at least “a couple of days a month”.
He wants to follow up on issues he encountered in his first bush venture, including building on research into cardiac risk factors in the bush.
