Professor Maddern has developed strong experience and expertise in translational research, starting during his three years of clinical and research work in Europe (1989-1992). He returned to Adelaide in 1993 to take up an appointment as Professor of Surgery at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Since then, Professor Maddern has been invited to lecture, both nationally and internationally, on no less than 90 occasions; has been awarded the John Mitchell Crouch Fellowship for outstanding research; has authored 19 book chapters; has edited a textbook on Hepatobiliary Surgery. In October 1997, Professor Maddern was appointed the Foundation Surgical Director of the South Australian Safety and Efficacy Register of New Interventional Procedures – Surgical (ASERNIP-S), which required setting up rigorous scientific assessment platform for new interventional procedures and technologies as they apply to the practice of surgery. This has become a major aspect of evidence based surgical practice, which yields important fruits for the international surgical community.

During 1999 Professor Maddern was awarded the position of Foundation Visitor for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Scientific meeting. He has also been awarded a James IV Travelling Surgical Fellowship.

His current clinical research focus is on hepatic metastatic and primary tumours and on improvement of operative and ablative treatment options. It is in this area that Professor Maddern has close collaborations with Professor Dennison and The University of Leicester and has done so for a number of years. Together they have been exploring new and novel ways to treat patients with liver tumours and this area of collaboration has produced promising outcomes and resulted in many joint publications and changed internal practice in both Professors’ surgical departments.

Professor Maddern is currently Head of Research at the Basil Hetzel Research Institute of The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Head of the Discipline of Surgery of the University of Adelaide and leads the Division of Surgery at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Royal Adelaide Hospital.