Rate My Professor Andrew McCombie

Dr Andrew McCombie is a Research Officer and Data Analyst at Te Whatu Ora | Health New Zealand and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Surgery and Critical Care at the University of Otago, Christchurch, Faculty of Medicine, Health Sciences Division. He holds a BSc and BA(Hons) from the University of Canterbury and a PhD from the University of Otago, completed in 2014, focused on the psychological aspects of inflammatory bowel disease. He is currently pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Arts (Statistics) at Massey University. His professional expertise includes biostatistical analysis using RStudio, SPSS, and Excel; power calculations; generalized linear models; study design; protocol development; funding applications; Māori consultation; ethics processes; data collection; and preparation of publications in general surgery and emergency medicine.

McCombie's research interests encompass inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis), bowel cancer, psychology, quality of life, psychological distress, depression, anxiety, smartphone apps (IBDsmart and IBDoc), patient education, computerized psychological interventions, questionnaire development and validation, randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews, traumatic injury, emergency medicine, incidence studies, and standardized reporting of operation notes. He has led the long-term follow-up of ileal pouch surgeries in Canterbury, yielding two publications and a patient information brochure for ulcerative colitis patients. He supports use of Scope and Cortex systems at Christchurch Hospital for surgical outcomes and hospital resource utilization. Key recent publications include: Nonis et al. (2026), 'The effect of increasing age on outcomes in major trauma: A retrospective cohort study' (Emergency Medicine Australasia); Quinn et al. (2026), 'Under-diagnosis and under-treatment of post traumatic stress disorder amongst major trauma patients' (Injury); Macgregor et al. (2026), 'Effect of ethnicity and parity on utilisation of labour epidural analgesia' (Anaesthesia); Kennedy et al. (2026), 'Maintaining lower fresh gas flows when using sevoflurane' (Anesthesiology); Preston et al. (2025), 'Osteoporosis risk scores to predict increased levels of care' (ANZ Journal of Surgery). Previously a board member of Crohn's and Colitis New Zealand and executive member of the New Zealand Society of Gastroenterology, he now serves on the data governance group for the New Zealand Trauma Registry.