Professor Frances Mair

‌Norie Miller Professor of General Practice, Institute of Health and Wellbeing

'The future is about putting the person with chronic illness at the centre and realising that a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work for chronic disease management.  We must undertake research that informs clinical decision-making and promotes self-management that is feasible, for the complex heterogeneous patient populations that exist today.'

Professor Frances Mair is Head of General Practice and Primary Care and Research Convenor for the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow. Frances leads an extensive programme of chronic illness, multimorbidity and digital health research that promotes a move to person centred care, promoting the concept of “Minimally Disruptive Medicine (MDM)” which has gained traction internationally.

Following a paper she co-wrote and published in the British Medical Journal that argued for the necessity of providing medicine that is minimally disruptive for patients, she has been principal investigator on a range of research projects that examine the largely unexplored phenomenon of treatment burden.

Alongside experts at the University of Southampton and Mayo Clinic, USA, Professor Mair has formed the International Group for Minimally Disruptive Medicine, which aims to explore the concepts of treatment burden and individual capacity and inform interventions that will help individuals with chronic illness and has disseminated her work via NEJM Catalyst podcasts, radio interviews and other media.

Find out more about Professor Mair.

Professor Frances Mair undertakes mixed methods research focusing on optimising the care of patients with chronic illness and multimorbidity with a particular emphasis on the potential role for digital health.  Her work takes into account the wider socioeconomic environment and social contexts in which patients live and the importance of understanding implementation issues to help bridge the translational gap between research and clinical practice.