Host of the Health Report, on ABC Radio National, Dr Norman Swan, is a multi-award winning broadcaster and journalist. One of the first medically qualified journalists in Australia, Dr Swan was born in Scotland, graduated in medicine from the University of Aberdeen and later obtained postgraduate qualifications in paediatrics.

Joining the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1982, Dr Swan has won numerous awards for his journalism and broadcasting. Dr Swan was named Australian Radio Producer of the Year in 1984 and was awarded a Gold Citation in the United Nations Media Peace Prizes for his radio work. He has won three Walkley National Awards for Australian journalism and Australia's top prize for Science Journalism, the Michael Daly Award, twice.

An example of Dr Swan's work is his much publicised and controversial investigative program on scientific fraud and the well-known gynaecologist Dr William McBride. The program exposed fraudulent research, sending shock waves throughout the medical world and led to Dr William McBride being de-registered. It earned Dr Swan the 1988 Australian Writers' Guild Award for best documentary and a Gold Walkley.

In 2004 he was awarded the Medal of the Australian Academy of Science, an honour that had only been given three times. The Royal College of Physicians of Glasgow made him a Fellow and he has consulted for the World Health organisation on global priorities in health research.

Dr Swan also presents "Health Minutes" on ABC NewsRadio each week and edits a newsletter, The Choice Health Reader, in partnership with the Australian Consumers Association. On television, Dr Swan has hosted ABC Television's, Quantum and Health Dimensions, and been a guest reporter on Catalyst and Four Corners. He created a series on disease and civilisation, "Invisible Enemies", made for Channel 4(UK) and SBS Television and co-wrote "The Opposite Sex", for ABC Television. He has been the Australian correspondent for the Journal of the American Medical Association and the British Medical Journal.