Professor Rajesh Thomas awarded 2025 Clinician Research Fellowship
Congratulations to Professor Rajesh Thomas, Respiratory Medicine Consultant at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (SCGH), who has been awarded a 2025 Clinician Research Fellowship to optimise robotic bronchoscopy techniques.
Professor Thomas said the fellowship aims to study how novel robotic bronchoscopy techniques could help to minimise the painful interventions, diagnostic delays and hospital admissions that our patients with lung cancer endure and thereby improve their care and cure.
"This exciting project carries forward and expands on the new robotic bronchoscopy programme that my Interventional Bronchoscopy team has pioneered at Charlies," said Prof Thomas.
The funding will support vital research into optimising robotic bronchoscopy techniques to improve lung cancer diagnosis-treatment, after SCGH became the first hospital in WA in July to establish a robotic bronchoscopy service.
He said he gratefully acknowledges the vital funding support from Future Health Research and Innovation Fund, McCusker Charitable Foundation, Charlies Foundation for Research and the Institute for Respiratory Health that enabled the robotic bronchoscopy program to truly take off.
"Robotic bronchoscopy is a transformational next-generation tool for lung nodule interventions providing unmatched safety and diagnostic capability, compared to the traditional techniques we have been using until now," he said.
The new procedure allows safe, minimally invasive biopsy of small, hard to reach nodules in the peripheral lung leading to earlier, more accurate diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer.
This service plays a critical role in supporting the National Lung Cancer Screening Program, which aims to identify early-stage lung cancer in people who are at high risk of the disease but are not exhibiting symptoms.
"It is so pleasing to see that since its inception in July, more than 60 Western Australian patients have safely and successfully undergone robotic bronchoscopy for their lung nodule assessment," said Prof Thomas.
"This is already transforming how we manage lung cancer at Charlies and the fellowship aims to improve even more these benefits for our cancer patients," he said.
Professor Thomas is one of four recipients of the 2025 Fellowship, who were recently acknowledged at the 2025 Raine Foundation Annual Award Ceremony for their contribution to improving the health of Western Australians.
The robotic bronchoscopy service at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital recently led to an Australian first surgery being performed, which you can read more about here.