Paediatric respiratory and sleep medicine specialist Dr Vikas Goyal has more time to dedicate to his world-leading research into bronchiectasis as the recipient of a Gold Coast Health Clinician Researcher Fellowship.
Dr Goyal is one of two inaugural recipients of a fellowship, alongside fellow Gold Coast Health clinician researcher Adjunct Associate Professor Thuy Frakking. As a fellow, he has two days per week for three years on full pay to dedicate to research, time he describes as ‘invaluable’.
The Fellowship began at the start of July, and Dr Goyal has already extended two ongoing studies into Gold Coast Health through his research group at Brisbane; he is also writing additional grant applications so he can expand his research.
“The Fellowship is a very good initiative, because when clinicians have completed a PhD, most would like to keep doing research, but it is not always possible because of a lack of monetary or time support,” he said.
“If you can dedicate time to do research and see patients specific to that research and not just from your clinical workflow, it is very helpful for clinician researchers.”
Applications are open for the 2024 Clinician Researcher Fellowships - apply now.
What is bronchiectasis?
Bronchiectasis is a chronic inflammatory lung disease that disproportionally affects First Nations children. It’s a complex disease that can have several different root causes.
Exacerbations can be debilitating —they can easily turn into serious lung infections, which cause progressive damage to the already scarred and wide-open airways.
Dr Goyal’s research is focused on reducing flare-ups of the disease and investigating how to individualise treatment.
His ongoing studies include investigating using a mucolytic medication to reduce the number of exacerbations of bronchiectasis, the use of ‘wheeze scan’ devices for early detection of asthma and other conditions, and the development of ‘markers’ for bronchiectasis flare-ups using blood and virus samples.
As such, one of Dr Goyal’s focus areas is investigating how treatment for the condition can be tailored for individuals.
Cumulatively, Dr Goyal’s studies are all looking into a wider question of how treatment for bronchiectasis can be personalised.
“We want to see whether, rather than using an empirical approach for everyone, can we individualise the treatment based on what other characteristics are present,” Dr Goyal said. “We want to see if children will benefit if they are treated using a more individualised approach.”
Dr Goyal has set a goal to establish a new study with Gold Coast University Hospital as the lead site during the three years of his Fellowship, and is looking to establish a wider research group at the health service, spreading the research further than paediatrics.
The questions that spurred a research career
Dr Goyal’s interest in the subject of bronchiectasis was piqued by one patient almost 15 years ago while he was working in Townsville. Dr Goyal was writing the discharge summary for the patient and noticed that they had been prescribed a 10-day course of antibiotics.
He looked at the prescription with curiosity, it wasn’t something he had seen prescribed for a chronic cough. So, he investigated.
“It all started from asking just two questions: ‘what is this and why are we doing this?’ It spurred that question for me of what is bacterial bronchitis and why are we treating it with 10 days of antibiotics?”
This curiosity led Dr Goyal to look further into the published research, and he discovered that some of the leading experts in the field of bacterial lung infections and bronchiectasis were based in Brisbane. He applied for a job in the city so he could work with them, and the rest is history.
In addition to his role at Gold Coast Health, Dr Goyal is also a respiratory and sleep physician at the Queensland Children’s Hospital. His PhD included two world-first international clinical trials relating to the management of bronchiectasis exacerbations which were published in the Lancet (2018) and the Lancet Respiratory Medicine (2019).
His work has been incorporated into the European Respiratory Society statement on protracted bacterial bronchitis in children and the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) chronic cough guidelines.
