Dr. Tomislav Meštrović

Clinical Microbiology

MSPH Health Services Management, Ph.D. Biomedicine and Health Sciences

Dr. Tomislav Meštrović is a medical doctor (MD) with a Ph.D in biomedical sciences from his studies in Croatia, but is also an avid lecturer, science communicator, medical writer and lifelong learner. His areas of interest span over several domains in medicine and life sciences.

Dr. Meštrović is a clinical microbiology consultant and director of a microbiology laboratory in the private health sector. Some of his quotidian activities include consultative work, antibiotic stewardship, quality improvement ventures and coordination of a clinical research unit. His clinical research path (that he tries to blend with patient care) really took off when he successfully defended his Ph.D thesis at the University of Zagreb Medical School in February 2014 on the topic of antimicrobial susceptibility patterns in Chlamydia trachomatis urogenital strains.

Since 2015, as a research fellow at the University of Zagreb Medical School, he has been involved in the first Croatian microbiome translational research project entitled “Assessment of Microbiota, Inflammatory Markers, Nutritional and Endocrinological Status in IBD Patients – MINUTE for IBD”. Its overall aim is to assess intestinal microbiota of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases and to discover novel biomarkers by using state-of-the-art next-generation sequencing and advanced bioinformatics methods.

In general, his research interests today encompass antimicrobial resistance, sexually-transmitted diseases, human microbiome and general public health, which are all fields where he published extensively in peer-reviewed journals. Tomislav also acts as a managing editor and reviewer for various scientific journals indexed in Current Contents and PubMed.

In 2015, Dr. Meštrović started working at Croatia’s youngest public university (University North), where he became an Assistant Professor in January 2016. Currently he is a course coordinator for three obligatory undergraduate courses, striving towards evidence-based teaching (akin to his clinical research practices), which was reinforced by Science Teaching Fellowship (STF) and Discipline Based Education Research (DBER) programs under the auspices of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM).

Dr. Meštrović currently serves as the Antibiotic Action Champion of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC), Young Ambassador of Science of the American Society of Microbiology (ASM), and was also a chair of ASM’s Young Leaders’ Circle. He is also a member of the EpiCore Network, European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID), International Union against Sexually Transmitted Infections (IUSTI), and the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS).

Dr. Meštrović has been interested in science and health communication since his student days, when he was one of the editors of the student magazine known as Medicinar. He is currently a medical consultant and part of the editorial board of PLIVAzdravlje health portal – the biggest medical information service in Croatia and the whole region.

Before joining News Medical, Dr. Meštrović previously worked with other leading sources of reliable news, including working on an Ebola story (among other contributions) during the disease outbreak in 2014.

Dr. Meštrović is passionate about science outreach and science diplomacy. He is currently a chief Operating Partner in Croatia for the International HPV Awareness Day Alliance (in collaboration with the International Papillomavirus Society). In 2018, he was appointed by the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia as a Managing Committee Member to COST Action on evidence-based medicine run by the European Union. In his spare time, he enjoys screening records as a member of Cochrane Crowd, Cochrane Collaboration’s citizen science platform.

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Articles from Tomislav

Fibroadenoma Diagnosis

Fibroadenomas are considered a common cause of discrete breast masses in young women. The diagnosis of these breast changes is based on the clinically relevant trinity of manual examination, imaging methods, and non-surgical biopsy (which is sometimes also known as the triple test).

11 Aug 2016

Fibroadenoma Treatment

Fibroadenomas account for 60% of all palpable lumps in the female population under 20 years of age. They can sometimes go unnoticed by the patient until the breast softens with involution, or they may represent an incidental finding on the first screening mammogram.

11 Aug 2016

How to Manage Dog Allergies

Allergic reactions to the domestic dog (Canis familaris) give rise to symptoms such as conjunctivitis, rhinitis, and asthma. Dogs secrete various proteins that end up in their saliva, urine, and dander (dead skin) – the most pertinent one being dog allergen known as Can f 1.

1 Aug 2016

Periductal Mastitits and Mammary Duct Ectasia: Similarities and Differences

Today there is insufficient awareness among the physicians about the benign breast conditions such as mammary duct ectasia and periductal mastitis, both causing nipple discharge. Not only those two entities can ring a false alarm of malignancy, they are also considered the second most common cause of benign diseases of the breast.

1 Aug 2016

Periductal Mastitis

Periductal mastitis is a condition where lactiferous ducts in the breast are distended and filled with amorphous eosinophilic material and foam cells, with concomitant presence of severe periductal chronic inflammation. In the literature, it is also found under synonyms such as mastitis obliterans, plasma cell mastitis, or comedomastitis.

1 Aug 2016

What is Amebiasis?

Amebiasis is a term for disease caused by the protozoan parasite Entamoeba histolytica that primarily infects the human bowel, but can also affect other organs (most commonly the liver). Entamoeba histolytica can exist in two forms – as a short-lived motile trophozoite with the ability to invade different organ systems, and as a long-surviving cyst that is able to colonize a patient.

19 Jul 2016

Alveolar Echinococcosis

Echinococcosis is a term used to describe a potentially lethal zoonotic disease caused by tapeworms of the genus Echinococcus. Disease states can be further sub-classified into either cystic echinococcosis (caused by Echinococcus granulosus) or alveolar echnicoccosis (caused by Echinococcus multilocularis), depending on the infecting organism.

28 Jun 2016

Types of Acanthamoeba Infection

Acanthamoeba is a genus of opportunistic protozoan amebic species widely distributed in nature. Furthermore, it is part of a broader family of free-living amebae that can autonomously survive in the environment, but can also parasitize in human, the host, and result in serious infections.

28 Jun 2016

Cystic Echinococcosis (Hydatid Disease)

Cystic echinococcosis (Hydatid Disease) represents an emerging illness found in humans and livestock that arises as a result of eating infective eggs of the cestode parasite Echinococcus granulosus – a small tapeworm of carnivorous animals.

28 Jun 2016

Hookworm Infections in Humans

Hookworm infections in humans are caused by two important species of nematode parasites (a type of a roundworm), Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus.

28 Jun 2016