This three-time Edinburgh graduate has built a successful medical career while nurturing a life-long passion for the environment. Combining his expertise and commitment, he co-founded a charity in Australia where doctors and students collaborate on environmental and health initiatives.

Name: Professor David J C Shearman

Degree course: BSc (Hons) Anatomy, MBChB Medicine, PhD Medicine

Year of graduation: 1959, 1962, 1970

At the moment

What is your current role, and how did you get there?

I was born in Yorkshire in 1937 as a single child in a wartime family, raised by my mother with my father fighting in North Africa and Middle East for six years without being able to return home. From a small Church of England village school, I earned a scholarship to attend Ilkley Grammar School and later a County Major Scholarship that opened the door to the University of Edinburgh.

I am Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. Until my retirement, I worked as a physician and gastroenterologist holding various academic positions at Edinburgh Medical School, Yale University and the University of Adelaide.

Apart from my clinical and academic career, I have devoted much of my life to writing about climate change – its science and its consequences for human health and the economy – and to volunteering in support of environmental causes. In 2002, I co-founded Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA), a non-profit organisation of volunteer medical professional and students working to address human health effects caused by environmental factors. I’m 88 now and physically handicapped but I am fortunate to still be able to contribute to scientific papers, media educational papers and newspapers, particularly on topics relating to climate science and the environment. Over the past two years, for example, I have been working with a climate expert, Melissa Haswell, to deliver articles and reports on stopping gas expansion in Australia.

Looking back, I can confidently say that it was my education at the University of Edinburgh that had paved the way for my contributions to medical and environmental sciences.

What inspired your interest in this field?

From my earliest memories, science and the natural world have always fascinated me, but my interest in these subjects grew even more when I moved to South Australia in the 1970s to work at the University of Adelaide. It was there that I met the late Professor Tony McMichael, a pioneering Australian academic and advocate in epidemiology who was passionate about understanding the links between the environment, climate change, and human health. We both saw the need to establish a national organisation of doctors dedicated to researching the impacts of climate change on human health. Sharing this vision, we began laying the groundwork for what would later, in 2002, become Doctors for the Environment Australia. I was Honorary Secretary and Tony the Scientific and National Overseer. After retirement, I worked full time for DEA for 16 years until immobility overcame me.

Prior to establishing DEA, I was President of the Conservation Council of South Australia (CCSA) – the umbrella organisation for all environmental groups in the State. I also acted as Spokesperson for the Conservation Council on health and the environment, water purity and pollution, global environmental issues and population, and was the founding editor of Environment South Australia magazine.

Career journey

What were some key milestones in your career journey?

After graduation in 1962, I trained for the medical fellowship and then became Consultant Physician, gastroenterologist and researcher in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh with a spell as Associate Professor at the Yale University Medical School.

At the age of 37, in 1975, I moved to Adelaide with my family to take on a post of the Chair of Medicine. There, in parallel and linked with practising medicine, teaching and leading medical research, I served in several non-government environmental organisations and became President of the Conservation Council of South Australia. Later, Tony and I co-founded Doctors for the Environment Australia.

I have written several hundred medical and scientific articles and abstracts in the literature, as well as articles on a range of environmental issues in professional journals.

How did your time at the University shape your professional path?

I’m thankful to the University of Edinburgh and to Scotland; it was my time there, my teachers and my fellow students that equipped me to serve humanity.

I applied to Edinburgh Medical School because of its illustrious medical history. The medical course in the 50s had gifted teachers such as Sir Derrick Dunlop who created the Dunlop Commission to assess the side effects of new pharmaceuticals. He spent hours on teaching at the bedside and we were captivated. He was a great orator, his main lectures were to final years, but the large lecture in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh was packed by students from all years, sitting in aisles or standing. Each student felt he was speaking just to them. Teachers were friends, mentors and leaders; life was frugal but frequently inspirational.

The education I received at the University of Edinburgh laid groundwork for my later contributions to Australian medical science. During my undergraduate degree, I learnt electron microscopy techniques that opened my eyes to the fascinating structure and physiology of the human gastrointestinal tract. A few decades later in 1972, two of my colleagues and I published an important paper on mother’s colostrum and its protective antibodies delivered in her milk to the newborn gastrointestinal tract. The clinical and laboratory research we conducted at the University of Adelaide contributed to several pharmaceutical drugs now widely used to control gastric acid secretion and inflammation of the intestines. I also believe it was our team’s work in the 1970s and 1980s that led to the birth of the name ‘Human Microbiome’ some years later. These accomplishments would not have been possible without my Edinburgh education.

The most vital part of education was interactive life with the students from every country bringing their cultural, political and life experiences to Edinburgh.

As a student I also met my future wife and life-long friend, Clare France, a nursing student I first encountered on the wards of the Royal Infirmary.

Can you share a standout achievement or moment you’re proud of?

My awards for service to the environment mean a great deal to me because it is generally quite unusual for someone with a full-time career in medicine and clinical care to receive them.

These honours include the 2013 Tony McMichael Public Health, Ecology and Environment Award from the Public Health Association and becoming a member of the Order of Australia in 2015 for significant service to medicine in the fields of gastroenterology and environmental health, particularly the impact of global climate change on health. The Conservation Council of South Australia bestowed my inaugural lifetime achiever award in 2017 with a Public Health Association of Australia Award, and in 2023, I was honoured to receive award for my lifelong work dedicated to health and the environment by the Public Health Association of Australia.

One other achievement I would highlight is the book I published together with philosopher and ecologist Joseph Wayne Smith in 2007. In ‘The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy’ we analyse the liberal democracies to date and suggest that they are unlikely to succeed in stemming climate change and other global environmental problems.

Industry insights

What are the biggest challenges and opportunities in your field right now?

Climate change is the greatest health threat of this century. All the climate scientists I know are even more worried! I believe many believe the size of health services will have to increase in size two times in the next decade to deal with mental and physical effects of climate change and environmental degeneration (food loss).

Alumni wisdom

What do you wish you had known at the start of your career?

Strength, resilience and persistence are crucial if you’re looking to build your career in science and I’d say that cultivating these qualities early makes a real difference when challenges come your way later in life.

What advice would you give to students or alumni looking to enter your field?

My advice would be to give some of your time to the voluntary movement, where the effort is collective and altruistic, and complementary to your career.

Are there any books, podcasts, or resources that have influenced you?

One book stands out above all others and has always infiltrated my thinking is Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth written in 1979 by James Lovelock. Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis – which he introduced in this book and developed with Lynn Margulis – views the Earth and its natural cycles as one living organism, where no part exists in isolation or in silos.

More

🔗 David’s website (external)

🔗 David’s online library of articles (external)

🔗 Doctors for the Environment Australia (external)

In his spare time, David enjoys painting. Click here to view his online art gallery and see some examples of his work below.

Amen – Alaskan Dreaming collection

Rainforest – Daintree collection

Flowering Eucalyptus – Flowers and Still Live collection

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