Rate My Professor Hamish Osborne

Dr. Hamish Osborne is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medicine at the University of Otago's Dunedin School of Medicine, serving as Academic Convenor for the postgraduate programme in Sport and Exercise Medicine. He holds qualifications of MB ChB and FACSP from the University of Otago, where he graduated before pursuing sports physician training in Perth, Australia, for nearly 13 years. His professional career encompasses extensive experience in elite sports medicine, beginning as team doctor for the Australian women’s national basketball team from 1997 until 2007, providing athlete care at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, and serving one year as doctor for the Highlanders rugby team. Since 2018, Osborne has been the team doctor for New Zealand’s Tall Blacks national basketball team, contributing to approximately 37 international fixtures, including the 2019 FIBA World Cup. He balances his academic role with half-time private practice and is currently undertaking a PhD focused on improving screening protocols for elite male basketball players to identify underlying medical conditions that may lead to sudden death in sport.

Osborne's research centers on clinical sport and exercise medicine, with a particular emphasis on studies that directly inform clinical practice, including investigations into normal movement patterns and factors causing abnormalities. His work extends to lifestyle interventions for conditions like inflammatory bowel disease, evaluating personalized diet and physical activity programs. Notable publications include 'Treatment of plantar fasciitis by LowDye taping and iontophoresis: short term results of a double blinded, randomised, placebo controlled clinical trial of dexamethasone and acetic acid' (2006, 156 citations), 'High-intensity interval training in the real world: outcomes from a 12-month intervention in overweight adults' (2018, 134 citations), 'Intermittent fasting, Paleolithic, or Mediterranean diets in the real world: exploratory secondary analyses of a weight-loss trial' (2020, 106 citations), and recent contributions such as 'A randomised controlled trial comparing the effects of personalised diet and physical activity intervention versus usual care on cardiometabolic risk factors in adults with inactive inflammatory bowel disease' (2026). Through his research outputs and practical involvement in high-performance sports, Osborne contributes significantly to advancing sport and exercise medicine.