Ian Denham graduated from the University of Queensland with First Class Honours, and subsequently trained in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology.
In the early 1980s he did a short locum at Melbourne Communicable Diseases Centre and became fascinated by Venereology, an orphan discipline at that time. He has been active in teaching and in training of Sexual Health Physicians, including a term as President of the College of Venereologists and has seen the gradual development of Sexual Health Medicine into a recognised specialty within the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
He is Visiting Medical Officer at Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, where his special interests are syphilis, gonococcal resistance, viral STIs, and changing patterns of STI epidemiology.