The surgeon scientist program is a well established process where training surgeons undertake PhD research as part of their training to become a surgeon. This gives them the qualified skills to be both a surgeon and an academic when they finish training.

Nuwan’s Supervisor, A/Prof Eng Ooi is a previous GPRWMF ASSR scholarship holder, who has found that the scholarship has been invaluable to his career and research. The GPRWMF has been a great supporter of excellence in ENT research and is one of the largest private bequests to OHNS in the world. https://gprwmf.org.au.  Selection into OHNS training and the ASSR scholarship is very competitive and only the top ranked candidates are selected for the GPRWMF ASSR. Nuwan is the first Garnett Passe ASSR in OHNS to be based at Flinders University.

Last week Nuwan also won the People’s Choice Award for the Best Oral Presentation at the ASMR SA Annual Scientific meeting.

Nuwan’s PhD topic is titled “Developing new diagnostic and prognostic breath analysis tools for Head and Neck cancer”.