The Canberra medico recently received an honorary degree from his alma mater, the University of Western Australia after graduating from there with honours in 2001. His mother Miriam was able to be there to share in the celebration.

"That's one of the characteristics of honorary degrees, you don't often get them when one of your parents is still around to see," he said.

"It was very nice that she could be there. It's very humbling and a lovely honour to have."

Dr Coatsworth is also completing a very timely PhD, looking into the Australian foreign policy response to global health events, focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Like every PhD student, I've had to do a bit of re-working of the analytical framework. But I am spending most of my time at the moment at the ANU," he said.

"It's very interesting, when you're studying the institutional arrangements around pandemic decision-making, and suddenly you find out that the prime minister had five other portfolios that you didn't otherwise know about, it does add a few thousand words to the thesis."

And, no, Dr Coatsworth says he didn't know about the PM's extra portfolios.

"I certainly didn't know. But a fascinating development," he said.

Dr Coatsworth is on study leave from Canberra Health Services but says he will be back on deck in the coming months with the roll-out of the new digital health record as one of the specialist trainers.

The digital health record will record all interactions between a person and ACT public health services.

"Really, I'm going to be one of the super users and helping to train the other doctors, but so having seen and done the training myself, I think it's going to be a real game-changer," Dr Coatsworth said.

"[The biggest advantage] is going to be the integration of information between all the health services, particularly Canberra and Calvary hospitals. And the ability for general practitioners to see the information about [procedures] in the hospitals.

"It'll be amazing when it comes out."