Dr James is an experienced GP with particular interests in men’s health, weight management, mental health, and older people’s health including longevity and health optimisation.

His career spans rural and remote general practice, emergency medicine, hospital care and aeromedical retrievals, with experience across Australia and during the civil war in the Solomon Islands. He brings that broad clinical background to everyday general practice, including caring for people whose health concerns are complex or don’t fit neatly into one category.

James founded GP2U Telehealth, PSYCH2U and FixHepC, combining medicine and technology to help patients access care and treatment. Through FixHepC, FixRx and related initiatives, he has helped improve access to affordable medicines for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV and Cystic Fibrosis. During the COVID-19 epidemic he co-sponsored the REVOLUTIOn trial in Brazil investigating whether the antivirals used for Hepatitis C would benefit SARS patients. Sadly they did not, but at least the world then knew it was a dead end.

His research demonstrating the effectiveness of generic hepatitis C medicines was selected for a late-breaking presentation at the 2016 EASL International Liver Congress in Barcelona, where he, just a GP, addressed the main plenary audience of 10,000 gastroenterologists. This work was also selected as one of five research highlights for the opening press conference. He presented again at EASL Amsterdam in 2017 and has spoken at several other international conferences, co-authoring a number of research papers published in the Journal of Hepatology, Journal of the International AIDS Society, Journal of Virus Eradication, and Liver International. He has also co-sponsored three clinical trials: REDEMPTION-1 with Dr Andrew Hill in the UK, REVOLUTIOn with the COALITION COVID-19 BRAZIL IX, and a Hep C retreatment trial with Professor Ed Gane in New Zealand. Unlike REDEMPTION and REVOLUTIOn this trial was named: “Glecaprevir/pibrentasvir and sofosbuvir for 16 weeks without ribavirin is safe and highly effective retreatment for patients who have failed an NS5A inhibitor containing antiviral regimen”. How’s that for word salad? This trial cured the small percentage of NZ Hep C patients who failed their first round of treatment, ensuring no man or woman was left behind.

James brings both medical and life experience to the consulting room – including a few lessons you won’t find in a textbook. As he puts it: “Before I had children, I was less attuned to the distress of worried parents. Having lower back, knee and ankle pain myself has also changed my understanding of what patients are dealing with on a daily basis.”

His approach is both pragmatic and practical: understand the patient and the problem, explain the options and work out a plan that fits the person. He appreciates that knowing what to do and being able to do it can be different things, and that good advice needs to work within the life you actually have.