Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine Fellowships
The Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine provides anaesthetic services for a broad range of surgical and medical patients.
You can apply for seven different anaesthesia provisional fellowship training streams, with positions usually starting in February.
Fellows commit to a mix of general and fellowship activities. Fellows are well supported through adequate consultant supervision, fortnightly protected teaching, weekly departmental academic meetings, regular morbidity and mortality meetings and a well-subscribed Departmental social calendar.
For general information, including applications and allocations, please email RPBG.APM-SRJobs@health.wa.gov.au.
Airway Fellowship
Supervisor: Dr Scott Douglas
RPH offers two positions for a six-month fellowship to post-fellowship trainees.
The two Fellows alternate weekly in their airway allocations.
The fellowship consists of teaching in the wet lab, organising "Can't Intubate Can’t Oxygenate" courses, teaching in the dry lab, being allocated to airway lists, completing audits, helping with research and attending conferences.
Education Fellowship
Supervisor: Dr Ryan Juniper
The Fellow coordinates and promotes education activities that occur within the Department and shares external education opportunities to specialist anaesthetists, anaesthetists-in-training, as well as visiting medical students, junior doctors and paramedics.
Fellows service a normal clinical roster but will be provided with protected non-clinical time to perform their duties as Education Fellow.
General Fellowship
Supervisor: Dr Gordon Chapman
The Fellow services a clinical roster with exposure to a wide variety of surgical and procedural lists, as well as duties outside the theatre complex.
Human Factors in Healthcare Fellowship
Supervisor: Dr Thy Do
The current job opportunity can be found on the following websites:
Royal Perth Hospital is the first Australian hospital to deliver formal, standardised, foundational Human Factors (HF) training to their staff.
The role includes 30 hours per week in anaesthesia duties, standard anaesthesia on-call requirements and 10 hours per week in HF related projects.
These positions will help shape the future directions of this Centre of Excellence and help integrate HF into organisational processes. Quarantined time for clinical support activities will complement clinical experience. Fellows will supervise and provide clinical teaching to more junior trainees, and foundational HF teaching to other healthcare staff in the hospital, both in and out-of-hours.
Fellows will identify their own areas of interest in any combination of research, audit, teaching, and administration, and work with their supervisor to develop a plan for their work.
Malignant Hyperthermia Fellowship
Supervisor: Dr Phil Nelson
Malignant hyperthermia (MH) is a hereditary disorder where a life-threatening hypermetabolic reaction can occur in response to particular inhalational anaesthetic agents or depolarising muscle relaxants (suxamethonium). The MH Investigation Unit is based at RPH and serves the whole of Western Australia.
Patients are seen in the fortnightly MH clinic. A decision is made about further investigations, which may include blood tests (looking for a DNA mutation) and/or muscle biopsy for in-vitro contracture testing (IVCT).
Muscle biopsies occur in theatre once fortnightly. The biopsy is taken while the patient is under general anaesthesia, which is usually administered by the Fellow. The IVCT is usually completed within 90 minutes, with results reviewed by the Fellow in the lab.
Pain Fellowship
Supervisor: Dr Leah Power
RPH manages a vast spectrum of acute and chronic pain over our inpatient and outpatient services.
In addition to consultations, interventional pain procedures, multidisciplinary assessment, treatment and pain programs are offered by our service.
Advanced training towards Fellowship of FPMANZCA is offered in Perth through the Statewide Tertiary Pain Service. This involves rotation during the first of two years of training through Fiona Stanley Hospital, RPH and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.
Three 12-month positions for first year Fellows in Pain Medicine are advertised on the WA Jobs Board (external link) around May each year.
Regional Fellowship
Supervisor: Prof. Krishna Boddu
Two six-month positions are offered each year. Due to high demand and where possible, we also offer a one-year program.
Fellows gain consultant attributes as well as learning peripheral nerve blocks and management of post anaesthesia pain for the upper and lower extremities and also the thoracic-abdominal trunk.
Fellows will be placed on the general emergency on-call roster.
We encourage all our fellows to undertake supervised research projects, write book chapters, and other scientific educational material, and attend and present at city, state, national and international meetings. They are encouraged to teach our trainee registrars.
Research Fellowship
Supervisor: Prof. Tomas Corcoran
The research team consists of two part-time Research Fellow positions and Research Coordinators who have exposure to up to 20 clinical or pre-clinical trials in progress. These include international and national multi-centre trials, investigator-initiated trials, local trials and on occasion, commercial pharmaceutical trials.
The Fellows have half their time allocated to teaching and research, and half to clinical service. Supervision of academic work is performed by Professors Corcoran and Ledowski.
The Department takes pride in maintaining the highest standards in research governance and ethical behaviour. Candidates are expected to be familiar with the principal tenets of Good Clinical Practice (GCP) and are actively encouraged to complete online GCP training.
Simulation Fellowship
Supervisor: Dr Ian Fleming
This is an advanced training position, aimed at developing skills in presenting, teaching and debriefing others. The role is a two day-a-week commitment where training is delivered to participants within the department, and hospital-wide.
Emphasis is on ensuring safety of patient care by developing leadership, teamwork and communication skills through crisis resource management scenario training. This includes regular hospital Medical Emergency Team (MET) simulation training and theatre MET training, in addition to broader contributions to scenario training with the State Major Trauma Unit, Intensive Care Unit and Emergency Department teams.
Teaching is delivered in the hospital’s dedicated simulation centre in the WASON building in Wellington Street, Perth. Other roles include weekly tutorials with Resident Medical Officers.
The Fellow is appointed from the cohort of provisional fellows already employed in the Department, with a competitive interview process if multiple suitable trainees are shortlisted.
Trauma Fellowship
Supervisor: Dr Christine Grobler
The six-month fellowship offers a unique opportunity to work in Royal Perth Hospital's Level 1 State Major Trauma Centre, servicing all of Western Australia with exposure to trauma surgeons and the busy Emergency Department.
Fellows will work on average 40 hours a week, including 30 hours of clinical time and 10 hours of protected fellowship time.
The Fellow is expected to participate in the general on-call roster, and teach on alternate Tuesday afternoons in the Chest Trauma Skills Lab.
With an emphasis on education, the Fellow is expected to engage in educational sessions and workshops and participate in a QA/QI project. Contact your supervisor with any areas of particular interest or ideas early to allow for GEKO approval.
The Department is very supportive and has an on-call Consultant to phone at any hour for advice.
Perioperative Fellowship
Supervisor: Dr Claudia Von Peltz
Royal Perth regularly cares for patients with complex healthcare needs from across the State.
The six-month fellowship offers exposure to our weekly High Risk Anaesthetic Clinic, regular allocation to the higher risk Upper GI surgical list and a half-day per week of protected Clinical Support Time for ANZCA trainees. The Fellow will participate in the general on-call roster.
Fellows will be allocated across the subspecialty lists at Royal Perth and Bentley Hospitals to gain maximum clinical exposure and consolidate their skills in the transition to independent practice.
Fellows are encouraged to complete a perioperative-focused audit or quality improvement project during their term, taking opportunities to work alongside our Perioperative Physician team, observe CPET, and attend the Perioperative Cardiology clinic.
Discuss any particular areas of interest with your supervisor.