Surgery
Training the next generation of clinicians and scientists
UWA Medical School’s Surgery division focuses on implementing and discovering ways to improve daily patient care through clinical care and leadership in the health system. Our students train using the facilities at our Clinical Training and Evaluation Centre, where we provide an authentic simulated hospital and operating theatre environment, giving our students experience within a multi-station operating theatre laboratory with advanced medical infrastructure, surgical instrumentation and simulators.
Our diverse range of research areas includes:
Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms – embracing epidemiological, clinical, genetic and laboratory approaches.
Burn Injury – developing innovative clinical solutions to the problem of burn scars with their associated functional, psychological and cosmetic problems.
Cancer and Palliative Care Research and Evaluation Unit – promoting collaborative links between health services, health professionals, researchers and policy makers at all levels.
Cancer Research – pursuing rigorous translational research into breast cancer, melanomas, surgical oncology, colorectal cancer, sarcoma, bladder and prostate cancer, urology and radiation oncology.
Cartilage Regeneration – optimising patient and graft outcomes through inter-related activities.
Centre for Orthopaedic Research – discovering novel genes, pathways and regulatory schemes.
Ear Sciences Centre – focusing on translating the findings of research into clinical practice, tissue engineering, embracing technology to improve clinical service delivery in audiology, and epidemiology.
Liver and Kidney Transplant – seeking to understand the role of innate versus adaptive immunity in organ transplantation, particularly in chronic allograft rejection.
Orthopaedic Surgery – evaluating various surgical techniques and prostheses in terms of outcomes and improved quality of life for patients.
Otolaryngology Unit – focusing on implant and hearing restoration research.
Research Methodology – undertaking critical evaluation of the surgical literature.
Surgical Education – developing curriculum and assessment programs in the area of surgical education.
Vascular Surgery – researching a wide range of cardiovascular areas.
Wound Healing – investigating the prevention and treatment of chronic venous leg ulcers.
Related departments
Anaesthesiology
Teaching the responsible practice of anaesthesia and anaesthetics.
Emergency Medicine
Researching methods to improve emergency departments.
Featured project
Patients First: The Continuous Improvement in Cancer Care Outcomes (CIC Cancer) project
The "CIC Cancer" project will implement an innovative program of research that places cancer patients first. A co-design strategy involving consumers, clinicians, health services and researchers that will measure outcomes important to patients using the International Consortium for Health Outcome Measures (ICHOM) standard sets, identify key deficits in care pathways, generate and trial new interventions and implement findings rapidly. This project will directly improve the lives of those diagnosed with cancer.
Get involved
The CIC Cancer project committee involves nominated cancer consumers from lung, prostate, colorectal, ovarian and breast cancer in the development of this initiative. If you would like to be involved, contact project officer for the CIC Cancer project, Nicole Dickerson, at [email protected] or on (08) 6151 1107.
Collaborators
We work with a number of centres around the State and throughout Australia to ensure our research is of the highest standard. We also receive funding from organisations supporting our research. These collaborations and supporters include:
- Clinical Training and Evaluation Centre
- Ear Science Institute Australia
- The Perth Bone and Tissue Bank
- Cancer Research Trust
- St John of God Healthcare
- National Health and Medical Research Council Australia
- National Institutes of Health
- Fiona Wood Foundation
- Western Australian Cancer and Palliative Care Network
- Curtin University
- Edith Cowan University
- Notre Dame University
- Cancer Council WA
- Cancer Institute, NSW
- Centre for Health Research and Psycho-oncology
- WA Clinical Oncology Group
- Western Australian Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR)
- The Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA)
- The Deeble Institute
- Australian Health Services Research Institute, University of Wollongong (AHSRI)
- Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC)
- Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
- Imperial College London
- Royal College of Surgeons of England
- Department of Health WA
Related facilities
PhD opportunities
The CIC Cancer project is led by Professor Christobel Saunders and the application process and general UWA PhD entrance requirements can be found on the Future Students website.
One PhD scholarship supported by UWA is available, which includes a mentorship by a cross-disciplinary team augmented by specific research development courses.
Related links
Bachelor of Science
Reason, logic, observation, analysis, resourcefulness, creativity, imagination, experimentation and synthesis – these are the essence of science.
Master of Surgery
Hone your specialty surgery skills while advancing your research.
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine (MD) graduates from UWA will be committed to the wellbeing of the patient, community and society as responsible, accountable, scholarly, capable and caring doctors.