Professor Farmer is an academic researcher with a special interest in outcomes research in transfusion and Blood Health and translating evidence into standard practice. He is one of the pioneers in Patient Blood Management and consults on PBM implementation, having been in the field for over 3 ½ decades. He is a Professor at The University of Western Australia, within the Discipline of Surgery, Medical School, and Clinical Training and Evaluation Centre (CTEC). He is on the World Health Organization (WHO) External Steering Committee for Patient Blood Management Implementation. He is an Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Haematology, Royal Perth Hospital, Perth, Western Australia, and is on the East Metropolitan Health Service Hospital in a Virtual Environment (HIVE) Haematology/ Trauma Research Committee. Since 2008 he has been on the National Blood Authority (Australia) Clinical Reference Group and the Australian Jurisdictional Blood Committee Working Group developing and updating the Australian Patient Blood Management Guidelines.

He is on the Executive Committee of the Western Australia Patient Blood Management Group, a co-founder and Scientific Associate of the International Foundation for Patient Blood Management (IFPBM), and a founding member of the Society for the Advancement of Patient Blood Management (SABM). He is Section Editor for the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia – a global leader in anesthesiology and the oldest continuous anaesthesia journal and the most cited. He designed and implemented Australia’s first comprehensive multidisciplinary Blood Conservation Program in 1990 and from 2007-2013 he was a consultant to the Western Australia (WA) Department of Health, during which time he co-designed and co-implemented the world’s first health-system-wide PBM Program. He was the senior author of the Program results paper – the world’s largest study on the impact of a PBM Program on clinical and economic outcomes – published in the journal Transfusion (Leahy et al 2017). This paper is the Most Accessed and second Most Cited article in Transfusion.

Shannon has over 100 peer-reviewed research publications, abstracts, and book chapters, and two books, on patient blood management implementation, and transfusion practice and outcomes. Along with 48 international PBM experts, he is the lead author of the 2023 PBM compendium, “Blood Works: An Owner’s Guide. What Every Person Needs to Know BEFORE They are a Patient,” published in English, Spanish, German, and with other languages planned. He has been a Principal, Associate, and Chief Investigator, on clinical trials and studies. He has consulted to a number of national and international health bodies, departments of health, and institutions, assisting with developing PBM programs and doing collaborative research.

He has received international awards for his work, including the Society for the Advancement of Patient Blood Management (SABM) Dr Kathleen J Sazama Award “For Outstanding Leadership in Advancing Patient Rights and Patient Blood Management.”