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

All applications must be submitted online via one of the following websites: 

Airway Fellowship

Supervisor: Dr Scott Douglas

Two six-month fellowships are offered every 6 months.

The RPBMLG Airway fellowship includes a significant educational component, teaching airway skills (including "Can't Intubate Can’t Oxygenate" rescue techniques) in a variety of formats to RPH colleagues and external participants.

Airway Fellows are encouraged and supported to undertake Quality Improvement activities or develop research projects related to airway management.

Clinically, RPH provides anaesthesia for elective ENT, Maxillo-Facial surgery and endocrine surgery but it should be noted that RPH is not the major Head & Neck service with a guaranteed awake intubation cohort. However, as the state Trauma Unit, RPH does receive emergency patients with airway injuries.

Fellows will also encounter a significant volume of complex airways due to infection and pre-existing patient factors.

There is ready access to a variety of video laryngoscopes and bronchoscopes, and Fellows are encouraged to develop proficiency first in using them and then teaching others to use them.

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: 

RPBMLG is the first public tertiary metropolitan Australian hospital to establish a Centre of Excellence in Healthcare Human Factors (CoEHHF) and offer ANZCA HF Fellowships.

These positions will help deliver on the four pillars of this Centre of Excellence, integrating HF/E into organisational processes.

Quarantined nonclinical time is provided to work with the Director of Operations for the Centre, hospital Executive Team and leads in Patient Safety & Quality to assist EMHS in achieving its vision of becoming Australia’s safest healthcare group.

Research and QA/QI initiatives are encouraged and supported by local HF academics from the University of Western Australia and nationally/internationally by Professors in Human Factors or HF experts from other Safety Critical Industries.

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 Kath Fisher

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 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 will also attend the Trauma Committee mortality meetings and will gain an understanding into trauma governance pathways.

There will also be an opportunity to spend observer days with Royal Flying Doctor Service – RFDS. 

The Fellow will be expected to teach various skillsets on alternate Tuesday afternoons in the Trauma Dry Lab. With an emphasis on education, the Fellow is also expected to engage in educational sessions and workshops and participate in a QA/QI project.

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.

 

Last Updated: 11/09/2026