He conducted clinical training in internal medicine, oncology and endocrinology. He was awarded the Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians (FRACP) (1989). He received a Ph.D. (1991) and M.D. (1997) from the University of Melbourne. He was the recipient of both the Neal Hamilton Fairley Fellowship, and the Winthrop Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of Physicians. He became a postdoctoral clinical and research fellow in medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a postdoctoral research fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School in 1991.