Rate My Professor Associate Clinical Professor David Jardine

Professor David L. Jardine is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Otago, Christchurch, and is affiliated with the Department of General Medicine at Christchurch Hospital. He earned his BSc and MB ChB from the University of Otago, a Diploma in Child Health (DCH) from London, and holds Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP). Serving as a general physician with interests in cardiology, he convenes the fifth-year General Medicine course for medical students. Jardine contributes to medical education research, focusing on students and trainees in difficulty or requiring remediation, including work on predicting medical students who may face challenges during clinical years. In 2019, he received a Gold Medal in Teaching, awarded jointly with Professor Steve Chambers. Promoted to Professor in 2021, he delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture on the autonomic nervous system's role in bodily control.

Jardine's research specializes in the autonomic nervous system, encompassing sudden death, vasovagal syncope, and autonomic failure. He has advanced understanding through direct recordings of sympathetic nerve activity in humans, examining blood pressure regulation during postural changes, hemorrhage, and fainting. His findings reveal that sympathetic nerves cease effective circulatory control when blood pressure drops below a critical threshold, explaining syncope mechanisms. Studies post-heart attack indicate that increased sympathetic activity does not trigger arrhythmias, while other work investigates responses to cardioprotective hormones and drugs. He co-supervises PhD projects on cardiac sympathetic nerve activity in heart disease and cardiac physiology at the Christchurch Heart Institute. Notable publications include 'Mesenteric blood flow and muscle sympathetic nerve activity during vasovagal syncope' (2025, Clinical Autonomic Research); 'Sympathetic nerve activity following acute type B aortic dissection: a pilot study' (2024, Journal of Vascular Research); 'Immediate effect of caffeine on sympathetic nerve activity: why coffee is safe?' (2023, Clinical Autonomic Research); 'A rare case of Streptococcus oralis meningitis in New Zealand' (2023, Internal Medicine Journal); and 'Predicting medical students who will have difficulty during clinical years' (2017). His work elucidates the interplay between sympathetic and vagal nerves in a 'yin and yang' balance controlling heart rate, blood flow, and organ function independently of conscious effort.